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Full Idea
If a passage carries a reference to love, we are not told what it says about love. And to speak of language with 'reference' but no predication is simply to misuse the word. We leave the realm of representation and enter that of expression.
Gist of Idea
If music refers to love, it contains no predication, so it is expression, not language
Source
Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.63-4)
Book Ref
Scruton,Roger: 'The Aesthetic Understanding' [Methuen 1983], p.63
A Reaction
This is a beautifully simple objection to the idea (associated with Nelson Goodman) that art is a language. Though what an 'expression' of something amounts to I am not quite sure.
| 8113 | Art is like understanding a natural language, and needs a grasp of a symbol system [Goodman, by Gardner] |
| 20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
| 12162 | In literature, word replacement changes literary meaning [Scruton] |
| 12166 | If music refers to love, it contains no predication, so it is expression, not language [Scruton] |