A fundamental explanation of musical meaning in terms of mental states

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study concerns the widespread phenomenon that music is perceived as meaningful to thelistener in some sense. The study adopts a style of conceptual clarification and investigationthat is current in the analytic philosophy of language, and is further informed by recentresearch into the fundamental biology of human musicality, which suggests that musicalityand language are neurologically related.The problem of musical meaning is approached as a problem of communicative behaviour,and is hence conceptually related to the concept of meaningfulness in the various modalitiesof linguistic communication. 'Communication' is defined in terms of the intendedconsequences of communicative acts – that is, a communicative act is an attempt on thebehalf of the utterer to cause some sort of change in the listener's mental states. From thispremise, meaning in both musical and linguistic acts is defined in terms the mental stateselicited in the mind of the listener. Two classes of mental state are identified: cognitive states,which are propositional in nature; and affective states, which are essentially nonpropositional.It is proposed that meaning in both music and language (as well as in othercommunicative acts) can be explained in terms of the elicitation of these classes of mentalstates in the minds of competent listeners, and that in any linguistic or musical act, acompetent listener will entertain a composite of these mental states that will be perceived asmeaning.The mechanisms responsible for the elicitation of these states are discussed, and it isconcluded that the causal powers of the communicative act, as it is represented in the mind,are responsible for the elicitation of these mental states. Directly causal means are responsiblefor affective states: there is a relationship of direct causation between relevant features of thecommunicative act, as represented in the mind, and affective states. Affective states are nonpropositional,in that they cannot be subjected to deductive or propositional operations in themind. By virtue of their being non-propositional, such states are also considered to be beyondverbal explication ('ineffable'). Cognitive states, on the other hand, are propositional innature. The mechanisms by which they are realised are complex in terms of propositionalcomputation: the relevant propositional features of the communicative act, as represented inthe mind of the listener, undergo manipulation by mental processes (for instance, thecomputational system for linguistic syntax). Cognitive states are expressible in propositionalterms, and are hence expressible in language.Whereas linguistic communication is efficacious for the elicitation of cognitive states,musical utterances tend to elicit affective states to a far greater degree. Furthermore, whereasthe syntax of language aids communication in the facilitation of semantics, the syntacticdimension of music is principally a means of implementing affective states in the listener.Therefore, any explanation of musical meaning must take the syntactical dimension of musicinto account. It is also argued that there are features of performance common to bothlanguage (in its spoken modality) and musical utterances that serve to elicit affective states.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University