ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a large-scale overview of the issue of music and emotion, and rehearses some more philosophical arguments. It surveys some current empirical approaches and considers exactly how they might be relevant. The chapter lays out the main philosophical considerations that bear on the question of music and emotion. The controversy over the connection between music and emotion is not itself about the fact that people describe music in terms of emotion, for such descriptions may be metaphorical and hence have nothing to do with real emotions or thoughts about real emotions. The question is whether there is a real connection between music and emotion or between music and thoughts about emotion, and this issue does not in itself concern descriptions of music using words that in their literal senses refer to emotions. Finally, the chapter gives a positive empirical argument from autistic listeners against one prominent emotion theory of music.
