Music and Aesthetic Reality
Formalism and the Limits of Description
Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy Series

In this volume, Zangwill develops a view of the nature of music and our experience of music that foregrounds the aesthetic properties of music. He focuses on metaphysical issues about aesthetic properties of music, psychological issues about the nature of musical experience, and philosophy of language issues about the metaphorical nature of aesthetic descriptions of music.

Among the innovations of this book, Zangwill addresses the limits of literal description, generally, and in the aesthetic case. He also explores the social and political issues about musical listening, which tend to be addressed more in continental traditions.

Introduction Part I: Music and Emotion 1. Against Emotion: Hanslick Was Right about Music 2. Music, Metaphor and Emotion 3. Music, Emotion and Method Part II: Describing Music 4. Music, Metaphor and Aesthetic Concepts 5. Music, Essential Metaphor, and Private Language 6. Music and Politics 7. Metaphor as Appropriation Part III: Musical Experience 8. Listening to Music Together 9. Scruton’s Musical Experiences 10. Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Realism Coda

Nick Zangwill is currently Ferens Professor at Hull University. He has taught previously at Durham, Glasgow and Oxford Universities, and has been visiting Professor in Padua University, Italy, Ritsumeikan University in Japan, Sao Paulo University in Brazil, Unitec in New Zealand, Haifa University in Israel, School of Fundamental Sciences in Iran, Brown University USA, Ohio State University USA, and UNICAMP in Brazil.