ABSTRACT
The justification of the art of music is cast for the modem world in terms of the concept of aesthetic value. The legitimacy, significance and potential for meaning of music are all made to rest within modern philosophy on the notion of a peculiar value attached to artistic effort, which has largely replaced the older account of beauty as the end of art. The concept of harmony has obvious potential for allowing music to be understood as an art of the good and the beautiful. Indeed, the oldest account of music's metaphysical significance recognized precisely the dimension: this was the doctrine of the Music of the Spheres. Attention to Boethius's sources suggests that it was the concept of harmony as a metaphysical dimension common to all being, rather than the cosmic sounds, which were the most important element of the doctrine. Cicero interprets the notion of harmony far more literally – in a sounding, musical sense – than Philebus Plato.
