ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about tentative argument has sought a political or ethical justification for the kind of discursive aims that regulate the study of music. According to the quasi-transcendental argument concerning the nature of institutionalized discourse, will therefore preclude ‘readings’ in so far as they are portrayed as, or derive from, the personal engagement of a privileged scholar with a given work. While not necessarily precluding theories which argue that ‘meaning’ is in some way dependent upon the listener, it does indicate the very real and limiting consequences that follow from such theories in respect of the kind of work which one might subsequently pursue. The demand precludes those normative positions that see their aim as lying only in the description of historical or compositional fact. The practical realization is undoubtedly more complex than its theoretical espousal; recent years have seen some promising developments in the attempt to situate extended formal analytical work within a modern critical and interpretive context.
