Incoherence and Musical Appreciation

Abstract

Recently, in philosophical aesthetics, there has been a move away from general theorizing about toward a more critical focus upon problems arising from or particular to distinct art forms, genres, and media. This stems in part from an emerging philosophical consensus concerning the nature of art: namely, that it cannot be wholly determined from first principles. Concomitant with this is the increasing realization that understanding art generally, and in particular any given art form, depends in large part upon our historical understanding of the evolution of art as a cultural practice.1 Hence, among other things, we are now witnessing a strong resurgence in the philosophical analysis of music.2 Nevertheless, there is a fundamental and unexamined presumption that runs like a thread through contemporary musical aesthetics. It is based upon the sound assumption that for us to understand music, we must hear sounds in a certain way, for example, as melodic, rhythmic, or harmonious. At first glance, this seems an obvious and harmless truism; and so it is. However, it is typically presumed that what follows from this is, among other things, (1) that the appropriate way of attending to any piece of music is that which renders it a maximally coherent experience; furthermore, (2) that musical significance arises from a work's fundamental, cohesive structuring, which depends upon both its purely musical and expressive perceptual properties.3 Of course, any account of understanding music will have to recognize the important role musical and expressive structuring play in contributing to a work's significance. However, musical aesthetics has typically failed to allow for music whose very value lies in its subversion of a maximally coherent experience. Furthermore, a large part of music's significance depends