ABSTRACT
The most simple way of thinking about why music is linked to transcendence and to ineffability is in terms of what the content of religion becomes once belief in divine transcendence becomes either a matter just of faith, or a mere dogmatic residue of dead metaphysics. The philosophy of music should arguably be concerned with the philosophy which emerges from music itself, rather than with incorporating music into the existing conceptual repertoire of philosophy. If philosophy is to do justice to such sense it must find ways of articulating it which embody its specific nature, and this suggests that the scope of philosophical expression needs to be widened. The fact that at a key moment in modernity the nature of language comes to be a central philosophical concern, and at the same time the status of music radically changes, can illuminate what is at issue here.
