140 music, philosophy, and modernity
the natural sciences. Modern philosophy’s role may consequently be
better thought of in terms of its interpretation of the place of science
in the rest of culture. This interpretation does not just have to do with
the norms governing cognitive practices. It can appeal to other prac-
tices, like music, which let aspects of the world show themselves in ways
which are immune to causal or law-based explanation. As we have seen,
some norms in music cannot be justified in philosophical or scientific
terms, because they may only be communicable through gesture, and
may only be understood via a kind of ‘material inference’ relating to
feeling.
Music and communityQuestions about the aims of philosophy are a feature of modernity
from Feuerbach to contemporary pragmatism. In the Romantic period
they are also connected to admittedly hyperbolic, but instructive, assess-
ments of the unique significance of music. Wackenroder and Tieck,
Friedrich Schlegel’s friends and the authors ofFantasies on Artof 1799 ,
echo some of Schlegel’s remarks when they claim that ‘Without music
the earth is like a desolate, as yet incomplete house that lacks its inhabi-
tants. For this reason the earliest Greek and Biblical history, indeed the
history of every nation, begins with music’ (Wackenroder and Tieck
1973 : 102 ). In chapter 1 I quoted Novalis’ claims that philosophy is
‘really homesickness,the drive to be at home everywhere’ (Novalis 1978 :
675 ), and that music allows the mind to be ‘for short moments in its
earthly home’ (ibid.: 517 ). Even if such ideas appear to be ‘merely
romantic’, reflection on why they were proposed at all can change the
perspective on whether philosophy should be primarily or exclusively
the locus of the discursive legitimation of norms.
Tugendhat’s and Brandom’s understanding of philosophy’s role con-
nects them to a crucial tension in modern philosophy. As Kierkegaard
and Sartre both argued, one problem in perspectives like Hegel’s is
that socially negotiated norms may offer individuals no resources for
the sort of existential meaning that can lead someone to commit their
life to music because it reduces or obviates their sense of ‘homelessness’.
Modern philosophy involves a conflict between public and private
dimensions of ‘meaning’, not least in the form of an uncertainty as
to where the line between the two is to be drawn. The idea of ‘being at
home’ can depend on the availability of normatively governed cultural
and other resources, but these resources may not, on their own, be