Talk about Pop Muzik: Discussion of Enrico Terrone, ‘Listening to Other Minds: A Phenomenology of Pop Songs’, BJA 60 (2020), 435–453

Abstract

Abstract In ‘Listening to Other Minds’, Enrico Terrone provides an account of the mental activity in which we ought to engage to appreciate pop music. He argues that we should ‘play a game of make-believe’ (p. 452) in which we imagine that we can ‘hear … the mind’ of a fictional character (pp. 452, 440). We should use this ability to grasp the thoughts and feelings that the mind contains, and thus undertake ‘exploration’ of the character’s ‘inner life’ (p. 445). This article argues, first, that only a simplified version of the account is plausible; second, that its plausibility as a general account of pop music depends on a dubious conception of the ‘paradigm cases’ (p. 449); third, that its desirability as an account of a narrower range of cases is questionable; and, fourth, that it is motivated by unsuitable assumptions about representation in pop.