Ordinary Expression and Musical Expressiveness

Expression is, in its paradigmatic sense, the activity through which we let others know about our own mental states and the perception through which we come to know others ’ minds. Expressive perception will be the perceptual ability to grasp expressive behaviour, gestures, etc. Now expressive perception seems to go beyond people’s mind and is exercised in cases such as aesthetically judging a landscape or responding to a work of art. These two contexts in which expressive terms are used are at least different in one great respect. While in ordinary expression someone’s mind is revealed through her expressive behaviour – either in the form of bodily behaviour or through linguistic expressions- in the case of applying emotional terms to objects, landscapes or artworks, no one’s mind is revealed strictly speaking. This difference has motivated the distinction – at least within the treatment that this subject has received within the philosophical reflection of music – between “expression ” properly and “being expressive of”, the latter referring to the quality a work of art –a landscape, etc.- possesses such that we correctly apply an emotional term despite the fact that no one’s mental state is being literally expressed. “Being expressive of”, hence, allows us to describe perceptual experiences where some expressive content seems to be grasped without attributing an expressive act to anyone. Thus, for example, while the Saint Bernard is expressive of sadness or a piece of music might be expressive of happiness, neither of them expresses sadness or happiness as a person could-if she found herself in those states. The distinction between ordinary and artistic expression does not only distinguish between two different sorts or uses of emotional terms – one in which we actually ascribe a particular mental state to a person, and another in which we do not-, it has also been characterized in such a way that it is assumed that ordinary expressiv