ABSTRACT
In a recent article called “Representation in Music,” Roger Scruton argues that “Music . . . is . . . an abstract art, with no power to represent the World.” His argument consists in laying out what he takes to be five necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for being an artistic representation, and in claiming that music does not meet some of them. I am interested here only in answering the charge that music qua music cannot represent. So I will confine myself only to those criteria of representation adduced by Scruton that bear directly on that charge; and I shall not, therefore, spend time outlining Scruton’s position in full.
