music and romanticism 139we saw in thelast chapter, contemporary interpreters of Hegel would
contest his inclusion in this list, but is what I am proposing an ‘onto-
logically inflated’ conception of music which obfuscates the concept
of truth? An immediate rhetorical riposte to Tugendhat is suggested
by Nietzsche: ‘Assuming truth is a woman – what? is not the suspicion
well-founded that all philosophers, to the extent to which they were
dogmatists, didn’t understand women very well?’ (Nietzsche 2000 : 2 ,
565 ), because they have not been able to provide an agreed account
of truth. Tugendhat himself admits that philosophy has failed to arrive
at definitions of truth and meaning, which raises the question of the
status of philosophy itself in the light of that failure.
Tugendhat demands that philosophy retain truth as the regulative
idea that orients the attempt to legitimate norms. It might then be
argued that philosophy can be connected to other aspects of human
endeavour that involve an inherent sense of incompleteness that is
generated by a notional goal of completeness. Novalis contends that
‘The highest works of art are completelyrecalcitrant(‘ungef ̈allig’) – They
are ideals, which only could andshouldplease us approximando – aes-
thetic imperatives. In the same way the moral law should approximando
become the formula of inclination (will). (Ideal will – infinite will. There
is, in terms of its character, no way of conceiving of the attainment of
the unattainable...)’ (Novalis 1978 : 652 – 3 ). Truth, morality, and art
can thus all be seen as involving regulative ideas: they make normative
and other demands whose significance lies in the very fact that, even
though they may be unfulfillable, they cannot be ignored. In music this
conception is evident, for example, in the conviction among perform-
ers that something that is worth playing could always be played better.
Novalis claims that philosophy ‘teaches the relativity of all grounds and
all qualities – the infinite multiplicity and unity of the construction of a
thing etc.’ (ibid.: 616 ). Linking Novalis’ view of philosophy’s aim to
art – which can often precisely be seen as involving ‘infinite multiplicity
and unity’ – offers ways of pursuing the question of what music may
‘tell’ us about philosophy.
Is the prior aim of philosophy the justification of norms, or the gen-
eration and apprehension of meaning? Is the latter reducible to the
former, as Brandom tends to suggest? Is it aphilosophicaldecision as
to which of these activities is most essential, and how is that decision
to be legitimated, if there is no general agreement about the founda-
tions or nature of philosophy? Such questions recur in modernity for
a variety of reasons, not least to do with the success of the methods of