Listening to music can be an intensely moving experience. Many people love music in part because of its power to alter or amplify their moods, and turn to music for inspiration, comfort, or therapy. It is a puzzle, then, why many of us spend so much time listening to sad music. If music can influence our moods, and assuming that most people would prefer to be happy not sad, why would we choose to listen to sad music? I revisit the (...) question of why we like sad music, drawing from work in both the philosophy and psychology of music, as well as work in the philosophy and science of affect. I argue to shift the focus of the question to music-induced moods, not emotions. This reframes the debate but does not dissolve the paradox. To understand what is appealing about the affective experience of listening to sad music I suggest we take into account the unique features of music-induced sad mood. I argue that sad mood and a certain sort of focused music listening are mutually reinforcing in ways that differ from other mood/music interactions. Sad mood and sad music are, in a sense, made for each other. (shrink)

Philosophers have failed to give a satisfactory analysis of the concept of the aesthetic. The attempt to analyze the concept faces two difficulties. The first is that aesthetic objects cannot be identified without knowing which experiences are aesthetic experiences and aesthetic experiences cannot be identified without knowing which objects are aesthetic objects. The second problem is that an incredibly broad range of experiences and objects are described as aesthetic. There is no principled way to choose between the various accounts of (...) the aesthetic and philosophers end up offering persuasive definitions of the aesthetic. These definitions classify as aesthetic objects and experiences ones which philosophers believe are deserving of attention. These objects and experiences are, however, valuable in a wide variety of ways and calling them all aesthetic obscures differences between them. Finer-grained concepts than the concept of the aesthetic are needed to explain how various kinds of objects and experiences are valuable. (shrink)

In the mid-eighteenth century music underwent a sudden and drastic revolution when composers “discovered” a new dimension to their art. This had immense repercussions on the philosophy of art, for the music created before and after this divide represents two different species of aesthetic experience, which in due course affected our understanding of the meaning and import of the other arts as well. Despite the immense aesthetic repercussions of this Copernican revolution in music, philosophers of art seem not to have (...) taken much notice of it. This essay details the emergence of the relevant musical criteria during the eighteenth century and dwells on their long-term impacts on the philosophy of art. (shrink)