The plural pleasures of music

ABSTRACT: Art has no predefined function, which means that it can be harnessed to serve any number of purposes, including no purpose at all. Sometimes art is successful because it educates us, inspires us, challenges us, disturbs us, or even insults us. But if art didn’t appeal to some people at least some of the time, it would cease to play much role in human affairs. Music (in particular) commands a prominent place in personal experience, economic life, and collective culture. Music could not have achieved or sustained such prominence without tapping into the biology of pleasure. It is suggested that aesthetic philosophers have underestimated the complexity, richness, pervasiveness, and importance of neurological pleasure. A defense of the “pleasure principle ” in music is given from the perspective of ev olutionary psychology