This paper examines Jerrold Levinson's philosophical theories of music, drawing on his essays "What a Musical Work Is," "Music and Negative Emotion," and his books Musical Thinking and Music, Art, and Metaphysics. The paper explores how Levinson defines music as more than organized sound, arguing it functions as a form of thought embedded in linguistic experience. It also analyzes his account of how music evokes simulated emotions without requiring cognitive understanding, why listeners enjoy music that produces negative feelings, and how active listening is essential to musical meaning. Levinson's work ultimately frames music as a unique mode of emotional communication between composer and listener.
The paper demonstrates focused single-author analysis: rather than surveying many thinkers, it builds a coherent picture of one philosopher's thought by tracing threads across multiple works. Each section takes a specific question Levinson addresses and shows how his answer fits within the broader theory, revealing intellectual consistency across his body of work.
The paper opens with a brief orientation to Levinson as a philosopher, then moves through four thematic areas in escalating depth: defining music, understanding music as thought, analyzing how music evokes emotion, and explaining why listeners seek negative emotional experiences. It concludes by synthesizing Levinson's view of music as active emotional communication, distinct from language but parallel to it. The Works Cited section follows standard MLA citation conventions.
Jerrold Levinson is a contemporary philosopher whose work examines the philosophy of music in considerable depth. Across various works, Levinson has considered what music is, how it is created and experienced, how music delivers meaning, and what purpose music serves. The following analysis examines Levinson's theories of music by focusing on some of the key questions his works have addressed.
A consideration of Levinson's theories begins with the basic question of what music is. Levinson addresses this issue in his essay "What a Musical Work Is," defining music as "indicated sound / performance-means structures" (Levinson 1980, p. 7). This definition combines the two parts that make up music: the actual notes and structure of the piece, and the manner and context in which it is performed. This takes into account that the score itself is only one element shaping musical meaning. The other element concerns how the music is performed and who hears it. This provides a foundational view of the nature of music and reveals that there is more to music than sound alone. For Levinson, music is ultimately a form of thought.
In Musical Thinking, Levinson considers whether music is in fact a form of thought. He describes how music is often spoken of as though it were a form of thought, noting that there are passages in the music of Brahms where it is said that "the thought comes to a head" (Levinson 2003, 2.2). It is important to note that this reference applies to music without words. The meaning is therefore not delivered through dialogue or text with known meaning, but simply through sound. Levinson goes on to note that no definite meaning is embedded in the music. It is as if a thought is coming to a head, yet there is no indication of what that thought actually is. This can be understood as an experience in which the feeling of reaching a conclusion is produced without the conclusion itself. If meaning is ordinarily gained through language, music creates the same feeling while dispensing with actual language.
Levinson also invokes Wittgenstein, noting that he understands music in terms of conclusions, agreements, and replies. This shows that music is grasped on a level modeled on language, even when it contains no language of its own. As Levinson states:
"Music is not understood in a vacuum, as a pure structure of sounds fallen from the stars, one which we receive via some pure faculty of musical perception. Music is rather inextricably embedded in our form of life, a form of life that is, as it happens, essentially linguistic. Thus music is necessarily apprehended, at least in part, in terms of the language and linguistic practices that define us and our world." (Levinson 2003, 2.4)
As this statement explains, music is understood through our perception, which is linguistically grounded. At the same time, music is created by people who also rely on language and linguistics as their basis for perceiving meaning. It is therefore unsurprising that people would produce sounds that mirror the meaning-structures and thought processes of language. Levinson extends this argument and eventually distinguishes two kinds of thought in music. The first is music "wearing an appearance of thoughtful acts" (Levinson 2003, 2.10), referring to the way listening to music seems to mirror thought in the listener. The second is music "giving evidence of thought processes in their creator" (Levinson 2003, 2.10). In this way, music can be seen as a form of communication in which the composer and the listener share a common language. The composer's sense of some meaning is encoded in the music, and this is communicated to the listener, who interprets a corresponding meaning. As noted above, it is not a precise meaning that is produced, but rather a representation of meaning.
The idea that music produces a representation of meaning is also central to Levinson's essay "Music and Negative Emotion," in which he explores the emotional dimension of music. This analysis further supports the view that music functions as thought, because the meaning Levinson describes can be understood as emotion. Put simply, music can make a listener feel a certain emotion without attaching that emotion to any specific event — this is the representation of meaning without the actual meaning described above. Levinson calls this a mirroring effect, arguing that music provokes an emotional response similar to feeling the emotion itself. The difference is that music lacks the cognitive link required for genuine emotion. For example, real sadness requires that a person know the source of their sadness — they must be aware of the reason for feeling sad on a cognitive level. Music can invoke a feeling of sadness without this cognitive grounding.
However, Levinson also notes that the emotions evoked by music are not fully realized. As he explains:
"What I have called the sadness reaction is not in truth a case of full-fledged emotion. This is mainly because music neither supplies an appropriate object for an emotion to be directed on nor generates the associated beliefs, desires, or attitudes regarding an object that are essential to an emotion being what it is." (Levinson 1997, p. 220)
In this sense, music produces a simulated form of emotion — one that is not attached to any actual experience.
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