Jerrold Levinson

Stephen Yablo has attempted recently to revive the notion of contingent identity, identifying this with a relation of L coincidence between objects that are "distinct by nature but the same in the circumstances" (296). Yablo argues convincingly for the need of essentialist metaphysics to recognize some relation of this sort, a relation of "intimate identity-like connections between things" (296) if it is to acknowledge properly the intuitive difference between (i) the nonidentity of a bust B and a hunk of wax H of which it is composed, and (ii) the nonidentity of the hunk H and the Treaty of Versailles. (i) and (ii) are clearly not on the same level. Even though B, like the Treaty of Versailles, fails to be strictly identical to H, it is very closely, and quite specially, related to it. What this relation is is certainly worth a general inquiry

As readers of this book will discover, from several disputes with me contained in its pages, Scruton and I are not in accord on a number of matters in the philosophy of music. Notwithstanding that, and more generally the fact that the book is controlled by a phenomenological-idealist perspective on music that I regard as fundamentally misplaced, in my estimation The Aesthetics of Music is the most valuable work to date on the subject of its title, one that addresses that subject in its full range and complexity, and one that is full of insight and instruction, both musical and philosophical, at every turn. It is must reading for anyone concerned with philosophical reflection on music.

Je voudrais ici réfléchir, de façon provisoire et exploratoire, à la question de savoir en quels sens il est possible de dire que certaines émotions ne pouvaient pas exister avant que certaines œuvres d’art ou certains genres artistiques n’existent, ou qu’elles ne pourraient pas exister s’ils n’existaient pas. Mon but est donc de mieux comprendre le rôle que les arts peuvent jouer, à la fois dans la construction, dans la conception et dans la communication de certaines émotions – émotions qu’on pourrait alors considérer à juste titre comme véritablement originales et inédites.