5 ideas
| 12167 | Reference without predication is the characteristic of expression [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Characteristic of expression is the presence of 'reference' without predication. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.71) | |
| A reaction: This echoes (in linguistic terms) Kant's thought that art is 'purposive without purpose'. The remark is comfortable in an essay on music, but it gets more tricky when the topic is literature, or even representational painting. |
| 12166 | If music refers to love, it contains no predication, so it is expression, not language [Scruton] |
| 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. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.63-4) | |
| 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. |
| 12168 | Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to it [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to the understanding of music. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.74) | |
| A reaction: I would not have thought that many people thought music was representational, but Scruton particularly mentions passages in opera that seem to pick up aspects of the story. Do even bell sounds not represent bells? |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 7902 | The Buddha made flowers float in the air, to impress people, and make them listen [Mahavastu] |
| Full Idea: When the young Brahmin threw her two lotuses, they stood suspended in the air. This was one of the miracles by which the Buddhas impress people, to make them listen to the truth. | |
| From: Mahavastu (The Great Event [c.200], I.231-9) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is the reason that Jesus did miracles. It is hard to spot the truth among the myriad of lies, if there is no supporting miracle to give authority to the speaker. |