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the same types of emotions. For example, a slow downtrodden beat may evoke sadness for most people and in most societies, while a light fast beat is linked to happy feelings. If this is correct, it may show that human beings have certain types of psychological reactions and emotions hard-wired into us given the same musical experiences, thereby demonstrating the strong connection between our experience of musical structures and our emotions. One of the reasons, among many, for the importance of these findings is that it would show that our musical experiences are universal (that is, the same for all people), even if only to a very minimal degree. Other philosophers and musicologists, on the other hand, have argued that different people and cultures could have totally different psychological responses to the same music. This debate remains an open question.

But, if we all do have similar experiences given the same music, then music may be a more fixed, and possibly central, aspect of human experience than many have thought. One of the fascinating implications of these findings, if true, is the extent to which music criticism could gain a certain degree of validity or objectivity. If all people naturally react to music in similar ways, can we then claim that our judgments of music are also built into us? David Hume, the famous eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, argued in his essay “Of the Standard of Taste” that the test of time is the only way to judge which art is truly great. If the vast majority of critics and music lovers, over a long stretch of time, praise and value the music of, say, a particular rock band, does that show that the band is really, objectively better than the competition? It’s too early to tell whether or not the investigations into the philosophy and psychology of music will confirm Hume’s theory, since there are many problems with this view. Yet, it does show that the consequences of the study of music could be very far-reaching indeed—it might even suggest that, when you and your friends argue about whether OK Computer or In Rainbows is a better disc, one of you might be actually right!

Art and Belief. (Show Me The World As I’d Love To See It.)

5.

New Shades

JERE O’NEILL SURBER

To really appreciate and understand Radiohead you need a new ‘aesthetic’, which is a lot like putting on a new pair of sunglasses. Here’s why: The field of philosophy called Aesthetics is, in several ways, like buying sunglasses. Sure, price and UV protection are important, but we usually get these matters out of the way pretty quickly. It’s other questions we generally spend most of our time considering.

We know that the tint of the glasses will make a big difference on what sort of contours and details we’ll be able to see. For instance, any skier will know that orange-tinted goggles allow the contours of the snow to be seen much more clearly than blue or green lenses. Just as important, the color of the glasses will definitely affect your overall mood. We sometimes say ‘looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses’ to indicate a feeling of optimism and joy and we know that very dark gray or blue lenses will make us feel ‘cool’ and detached. The point is that the glasses you choose need to be adapted to the sort of things you’ll mostly be viewing, to the general contexts in which you’ll be wearing them, and to the type of feeling you’d like to have when you put them on.

An aesthetic theory functions in much the same way with regard to art objects. First, it helps us encounter certain things as ‘artworks’ that we might otherwise never have considered as ‘art’ at all (think of the way of seeing, very different from the traditional one associated with ‘beautiful pictures’, required to consider Marcel Duchamp’s urinal or Andy Warhol’s soup cans as artworks). Second, it enables us to perceive details as meaningful that we might otherwise have overlooked or failed to perceive (for instance, Jackson Pollock’s drip-paintings as complex plays of deliberate planning and uncontrollable randomness).