‘The Truth in Music’

Dr Aaron Wendland (University of Tartu)

If truth consists in the correspondence of a judgment with a given reality, and if music does not involve making judgments that may correspond with a given reality, then by modus tollens there is no truth in music. Against this position, I claim that there is a truth in music deeper than any correspondence theory can capture: i.e., the truth through which a given reality is given to us in the first place. In order to substantiate this point, I examine the way musical works of art give us reality by attuning us to the world in a particular fashion. Specifically, I argue that music evokes distinct moods that disclose aspects of reality that were otherwise concealed from us. Finally, and insofar as music marshals what we might call ‘world-disclosing’ dispositions, I conclude by exploring the therapeutic or liberating potential in music: namely, that musically inspired moods may interrupt our everyday engagement with reality and thereby show us something new.

Author Details: Aaron James Wendland recently finished his Doctorate in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and he is currently an Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Tartu. Aaron is the co-editor of Wittgenstein and Heidegger (Routledge, 2013) and Heidegger on Technology (Routledge, forthcoming). He is the author of ‘Hegel’s Critique of Kant’ (South African Journal of Philosophy) and ‘Language, Truth, and Logic’ (Other Logics: Brill, 2014). Finally, Aaron has published some popular philosophy in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New York Times, and Public Seminar.