an undemanding sense, any set of things shares many ‘‘substances’’; chunks of

gold, e.g., instantiate the ‘‘substances’’ gold, metal, object, etc. (cf. p. 58).
The author is thus led to several attempts at ‘‘completing’’ Kripke’s stipula-
tions so that they typically pick out just one substance or species. The best
proposal he reaches is that they ought to have the form ‘K is the most uniform
natural kind (in the undemanding sense) instantiated by all or almost all of the
items in the baptismal sample’ (p. 58), where a ‘‘natural kind’’ K1 is more uni-
form than a ‘‘natural kind’’ K2 when the instances of K1 exemplify fewer kinds
of internal structures than the instances of K2. But even this proposal faces the
problem that its postulated stipulation for ‘gold’ would pick out the inappro-
priately specific ‘‘substance’’ gold of the isotope 79Au197, given that all naturally
occurring chunks of gold are of that isotope (pp. 58-9). The search for a ‘‘com-
pletion,’’ however, is unjustified once one realizes that Kripke is under no pres-
sure to understand ‘substance’ or ‘species’ in the extremely undemanding sense.
It seems clear, for example, that on the common meaning of ‘substance’, metal
is not a substance. Not even the objection of inappropriate specificity presents
a clear difficulty, for it is not immediately clear that there are no notes of the
common meaning of ‘substance’ implying that gold of the isotope 79Au197 is not
a substance. Similar remarks apply to the meaning of ‘species’ (which Kripke
uses as synonymous with ‘natural kind’ in the biological context; cfr. N&N,
p. 121) and the objection that a Kripkean stipulation for, say, ‘tiger’, might
pick out a peculiar race of tigers if there are only tigers of that race in the
baptismal sample. A discussion by the author of these interesting and
delicate questions about the meaning of ‘substance’ and ‘species’ would have
been useful.

mario gómez-torrente
Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM

Introduction to a Philosophy of Music peter kivy. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

2002. Pp. ix, 283.

‘‘I intend this book to introduce the lay reader to my philosophy of music,’’
Kivy writes, ‘‘not to the philosophy of music’’ (viii). In doing so, he discusses
scored works of Western classical music that are intended for live performance.
The focus is on absolute music—instrumental works without a text or dramatic
setting—but opera and song are also considered.
After a brief chapter on what philosophy is, Kivy embarks on an histori-
cal tour of philosophical discussions of music. He is sympathetic to the for-
malism espoused by Eduard Hanslick, except Kivy holds that music exhibits
expressiveness, which is a complex, emergent property depending on our ten-
dency to animate sounds and the resemblance their dynamic contours bear to
expressive vocal and other behaviors. (Harmonic and tonal patterns of tension
and resolution also have an expressive character, Kivy adds.) Expressiveness
is found in purely instrumental music, which has neither representational nor
semantic content but qualifies as a fine art in virtue of the beauty of its form.
Though expressiveness can be incidental to structure, in better works this is
not the case. In following music’s form, the listener predicts how the piece

222 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

will continue, while composers often subvert these predictions in ways that,
though surprising, preserve the work’s ‘logic’ and thereby retain the listener’s
interest. Knowledge of music theory is not required to appreciate and enjoy
music, but such knowledge almost inevitably enhances the experience of
music.
Kivy subscribes to a cognitivist account of the emotions, in which they cen-
trally involve belief (25, 126). We often respond powerfully to music’s charac-
ter. We can be intensely moved by its beauty, for instance. As well, music can
call forth responses through being associated with emotionally charged ideas or
events. But the view Kivy calls arousalism is false: music’s expressiveness never
leads people to respond by echoing its emotional character. He discards the
idea that we react by empathizing with a persona we imagine as experiencing
what the music expresses. He also rejects an alternative according to which we
have a tendency to ‘catch’ emotions strongly presented in our environment. We
are not subject to such tendencies or, if we are, they are never activated
by music. Both theories face the further problem of explaining why we would
listen and return to music that induces negative experiences.
I think the question of whether people ever echo in their responses the emo-
tions they hear expressed in music must be answered empirically. Psychologists
have identified and studied the general phenomenon under the title of ‘emo-
tional contagion’. And everyone who has ever declared that they were heart-
ened by happy music or depressed by sad music provides testimony to its
occurrence in the musical case. Kivy’s hostility to this notion stems from his
commitment to a cognitivist account of the emotions. It is because the listener
does not believe there is anything regrettable or unfortunate about the music’s
being expressive that sad music should not provide the occasion for a sad
response, he thinks. Nevertheless, Kivy does allow that some emotions might
not fit the cognitivist model (126). So he should. Philosophers recently have
challenged the ideas that all emotions require belief or that, as a group, emo-
tions form a natural kind. Meanwhile, psychologists suggest that universal
‘affect programs’, including some reactions of happiness and sadness, are con-
trolled in a modular, cognitively impenetrable fashion by primitive parts of the
brain, which is what one would expect if some non-human animals share with
us affective experiences. Kivy allows that we have in common with higher pri-
mates hard-wired modes of emotional expression (42). So it is difficult to see
why he is so opposed to the suggestion that music’s expressive power could call
forth from listeners mirroring reactions that do not involve the beliefs that
accompany more cognitively sophisticated responses.
Kivy resists attempts to locate narratives in works of absolute music. They
do not have plots. Moreover, pure music is remarkable in the extent to which
it relies on repetition to achieve formal unity and closure. No dramatic narra-
tive could survive such treatment. In fact, a marriage of the forms of absolute
music and dramatic narratives, as is attempted in opera, is fraught with ten-
sion. Kivy relates various strategies adopted since 1600 that attempt to keep
this union intact.
Except when supplemented by texts and titles, music has only a very limited
capacity for representation, Kivy maintains. Few non-musical sounds can be
depicted clearly enough to make their unassisted identification possible, and
music’s form represents other, similar structures only if this is explicitly indi-
cated by words. I’m not sure why Kivy thinks music’s capacity for representing

CRITICAL NOTICES 223

movement, change, and process is so limited, given its level of structural com-
plexity.
Kivy is an ontological Platonist: musical works are types of sound structures
with a timeless, non-physical existence. They are discovered and cannot be
destroyed, but their ‘first-tokening’ is created. (Kivy apparently thinks scores,
not only accurate performances, are instances of the works they specify.) After
about 1650, tone color is an aspect of the work-defining sound structure, but
the work’s instrumentation is not. A synthesizer that generated the correct
notes and tone color would genuinely instance the work, though that instance
would not also be a performance. To perform the work, musicians must com-
ply with the directions issued by the composer in the score, though this must
be interpreted in accord with conventions and practices it assumes (225-34).
Compliance with the score leaves the performer with considerable freedom for
interpretation.
I believe Kivy’s view of performance as involving score compliance does not
sit easily with his ontological Platonism, because many scores are instrument-
specific (e.g., lute tablatures), as are many parts of generic notations (e.g., wind
and brass players are never asked to play pizzicato). Scores are as much con-
cerned with the means of production as with the sounds to be generated—with
the use of the violin as with making a violin-like sound. A significant amount
of music has been written to showcase virtuosity, which is intimately concerned
with the difficulties of getting the right sounds out of the specified instruments.
There are good reasons, then, for seeing its instrumentation, not just timbral
qualities, as essential to the work’s identity.
Kivy is not sanguine about the authentic performance movement. There
may be little point in performing in an historically informed manner given
that modern listeners are not placed to receive the work as the composer’s
contemporaries did. Instead of considering what Bach intended at the time,
Kivy suggests we should ask how he would want his work played today.
Kivy’s claim that historically authentic performance allows for taste and
judgment only to the extent that our knowledge of past musical practice is
incomplete (244-5) is not convincing given his own argument that many details
of any accurate performance are underdetermined (237). Moreover, how is it
relevant to the authentic performance of Bach’s music to ask how he now
would want it played? Bruckner rewrote his first symphony of 1866 in 1891. If
the version of 1891 is played, the result is not an authentic performance of the
version of 1866!
In the final chapter, Kivy follows Schopenhauer in arguing that the pleasure
we get from absolute music comes from the sense of liberation we experience in
going from our world (with its troubles and demands) to another world of pure
sonic structure that can be appreciated on its own terms alone.
Kivy’s writing is clear, engaging, and accessible and there is much to be
gained from this book, but I’m disappointed he did not attempt a broader
view. It would have been a treat to read Kivy’s opinions on issues he has not
previously addressed—jazz and rock, improvisation and performance interpre-
tation, music theory and criticism.

stephen davies
University of Auckland

224 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH