Introduction

This volume presents a new collection of essays, all of them dealing with music, by Jerrold Levinson, one of the most prominent philosophers of art today. It follows in the line of Levinson's earlier collections, Music, Art, and Metaphysics (1990), The Pleasures of Aesthetics (1996), and Contemplating Art (2006), and is representative of the most stimulating work being done under the rubric of analytic aesthetics.

The essays, which are wide-ranging, should appeal to aestheticians, philosophers, musicologists, music theorists, music critics, and music lovers of all kinds. Three of the twelve essays comprising the volume have not previously been published, and in somewhat of a departure for Levinson, four of the essays focus on music in the jazz tradition.