non-conceptual content and the soudn of music

8/12/2019 Non-Conceptual Content and the Soudn of Music

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Non-conceptual Content and the Sound of Music

MICHAEL LUNTLEY

Abstract: I present an argument for the existence of nonconceptual representationalcontent. The argument is compatible with McDowells defence of conceptualismagainst those arguments for nonconceptual content that draw upon claims about thefine-grainedness of experience. I present a case for nonconceptual content thatconcentrates on the idea that experience can possess representational content thatcannot perform the function of conceptual content, namely figure in the subjectsreasons for belief and action. This sort of argument for nonconceptual content is bestachieved with examples from auditory perception, especially our perception of music.

John McDowell has deployed a powerful strategy against the idea that the representa-

tional content of personal level experience includes nonconceptual content.1 I call it

the kidnapping strategy. The literature on nonconceptual content abounds with

examples about the fine-grainedness of perceptual experience which, it is claimed,

illustrate that experience represents properties that fall between the grip of the subjects

conceptual repertoire.2 The kidnapping strategy shows how such representations can

be rendered conceptual by treating them as examples of short-lived recognitional

capacities for the fine-grained properties in question. In this paper I present an

argument for nonconceptual content that is compatible with this strategy. The

examples that I employ involve auditory perception, in particular, our experience of

music. I shall briefly extend the argument to other sense modalities.

1. Outline of the Case for Nonconceptual Content

Suppose a subjects personal level experience represents something as F. Where therepresentation of F-ness is conceptual, the content of that part of the subjects

experience at issue can be thought of as a component of the proposition expressed

by the sentence,

Earlier versions of this material were presented at CREA, Paris, University College, London, andthe University of Manchester. Thanks to all those present for hard questions and helpfulsuggestions. Thanks also to my colleagues Naomi Eilan, Christoph Hoerl, Peter Poellner andJohannes Roessler and to an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Address for correspondence: Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, Coventry,

CV4 7AL, UK.Email: [email protected]


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such-and-such is F.

I disregard for present purposes the component that occupies subject position. If

the content is conceptual it will be what we ordinarily call a concept. Bynonconceptual contents, I mean ways of representing properties that take

predicate position in propositions which characterise a subjects experience and

yet are not expressible with concepts the subject possesses. The challenge in

making the case for nonconceptual content is to provide examples in which it

makes sense to report on the subjects experience by saying that it represents:

such-and-such is F

and yet the subject has no capacity for grasping the proposition in terms of theircurrent conceptual repertoire. The fact that the point is put in terms of a proposi-

tion that the subject cannot grasp should not be taken to entail that nonconceptual

content is itself propositional in structure. Indeed, the phenomenology of non-

conceptual content suggests quite the opposite.3 The idea then is that the proposi-

tion in question characterises part of the content of the subjects experience, but

they have no resources for expressing that proposition themselves. Put like that, it

can both seem easy to accommodate the idea of nonconceptual content at the sub-

personal level (in terms of propositions that express the information handled by

sub-personal systems) and problematic to accommodate nonconceptual content at

the personal level. Prima facie, the very idea of personal level nonconceptual

content seems unintelligible, for how can a subjects personal level experience

include the representation that such-and-such is Fand yet the subject not know

this? The conceptualist will protest that if the content of the subjects personal level

experience represents the way that the world is for them, how can the world be a

certain way for them without their having a grip on it being that way for them?

The protest points up a real difficulty.

The notion of personal level experience is the notion of experience that is

phenomenologically real; the content in which we are interested is the content

of experience that characterises the subjects point of view on the world. Personallevel nonconceptual content is content that characterises the subjects point of view

but is invisible to their concepts. If concepts are the means by which things and

properties are brought into experience, then nonconceptual content must be

invisible to the subjects point of view. So, how could nonconceptual content be

3 Of course, it is not clear that this proposition is well-formed if it has a conceptual componentin subject position and a nonconceptual component in the predicate position. It is best to treat

the propositions that express nonconceptual contents as nonconceptual through and through.For now, I simplify and concentrate on the predicate position. It is plausible to think that ifthe predicate component is nonconceptual the subject component must be also, for if the

Non-conceptual Content 403


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part of the subjects point of view? There appears to be an easy response to this

protest. The response is to provide examples in which the subjects experience

discriminates F-ness even though the subject lacks the concept of F-ness. For

example, the subject discriminates a colour shade, e.g., magenta. The discrimin-ation is at the personal level (it hardly seems right to deny that the colour is, in

some sense, there for them), and yet they do not possess the concept magenta. So

the proposition expressed by:

such-and-such is magenta

characterises part of the content of the subjects experience but is invisible to the

subject, for they have no resources for expressing it.4 It is this response that falls

foul of McDowells kidnapping strategy. The fact that the subject cannot express aconceptual encounter with magenta using the word magenta does not show that

their discrimination of the shade is nonconceptual. Their discrimination will be

conceptual if we say that the proposition that characterises the content is that

expressed by the sentence:

such-and-such is that colour

under appropriate circumstances of use where that colour expresses a short-lived

recognitional capacity. This manoeuvre appears to be available to kidnap any

putative example of nonconceptual content. The propositions that characterise

the conceptual content of a subjects experience may only be expressible with

context-sensitive linguistic items, but as long as the subject has some resources for

expressing a conceptual discrimination ofF-ness, it hardly matters whether or not

they have the resource that uses the normal word forF-ness. Lacking the canonical

resources for expressing the concept of F-ness does not constitute lack of a

conceptual discrimination ofF-ness.5

In order to show that nonconceptual content has a role to play in characterising

the subjects personal level take on the world, we require examples in which it is

correct to say both that the proposition expressed by:

such-and-such is F

characterises part of the representational content of their experience and that the

subject has no resources for expressing a conceptual discrimination ofF-ness. They

must be conceptually blind with respect to F-ness. Most examples in the literature

4

It is only the component in predicate position that I am assuming is conceptually invisible, cfprevious footnote.

5 The fact that the expression of the concept is context-sensitive will also determine the extent

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on nonconceptual content do not prove this conceptual blindness; at best they

illustrate lack of the canonical conceptual resources for discriminating F-ness.6

The requirement of conceptual blindness with respect to F-ness in order to

make the case for nonconceptual content reveals the potency of the kidnappingstrategy.7 There is a prima facie difficulty in showing both that a subjects personal

level experience represents F-ness and that the subject is conceptually blind to

F-ness. Nevertheless, the requirement of conceptual blindness with respect to

F-ness shows why the conceptualist protest of three paragraphs back begs the

question. The protest was:

How can experience represent the world as being a certain way for a subject

without the subject having some conceptual resources for expressing that way,

for concepts are the ways in which things and properties are for us inexperience?

The problem for the nonconceptualist is that it seems to make sense to suppose that

as soon as you notice something in experience it gets conceptualised. So the

nonconceptualist has to challenge the assumption that concepts are the only way

in which things and properties are for us in experience. What needs to be shown is

the possibility of things you notice that you cannot conceptualisethings and

properties made available in experience that you struggle to pick up. To pick them

up in experience is to make the discrimination available for the rational organisa-

tion of behaviour by the subject. The conceptualists protest is question begging for

it ignores the possibility of there being elements of experience that discriminate

things but which cannot be rationally deployed. Showing that this is possible

requires a more radical departure from the conceptualist model than that which

depends on examples about the fine-grainedness of experience, but it is not

obvious that such a possibility can be ruled out a priori. It may turn out that no

convincing examples can be given to illustrate the idea of a capacity to discriminate

6 Crane (1992) explicitly put the case in terms of canonical versus non-canonical resources fordiscrimination. Bermudez and Peacocke sometimes express the idea of nonconceptual contentin a way that leaves it unclear with respect to which concepts fine-grainedness is characterised:(Bermudez, 1995 p. 335) the richness and grain of perceptual experience is not constrainedby the concepts a perceiver might or might not express; (Peacocke, 1992 p. 67) anexperience can have a finer-grained content that can be formulated using conceptspossessed by the experiencer. At other times both explicitly characterise fine-grainednesswith respect to descriptive concepts. Bermudez, 1994 p. 403 says that the idea ofnonconceptual content is particularly pertinent in the case of modalities for which veryfew people have a developed descriptive vocabulary. Peacocke (1992 p. 67) says that thecontent of visual perception when looking at rounded jagged mountains is far more

specific than that description indicates. Kelly, 2001 argues that the fine-grainednessargument is too weak. See Heck, 2000 for a different argument in terms of the rolenonconceptual content plays in explaining our possession of conceptual content. See also



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F-ness which fails to satisfy the requirements on being a conceptual capacity, but it

is an issue whether it has to be the case that no such examples can be given. By

presenting the case for nonconceptual content in terms of a capacity to discriminate

F-ness that fails on one of the marks of a conceptual capacity, the dialectic of thedebate swings round to put pressure on what is meant by saying of a capacity to

discriminate F-ness that it is conceptual. It will not do simply to assume that

capacities to discriminate are conceptual. So the issue is this: Under what condi-

tions are we entitled to say that a subjects experience represents F-ness in giving

them a capacity to discriminate F-ness and yet the subject is conceptually blind to

F-ness?

The idea behind the account of nonconceptual content that I want to promote

can now be stated. I follow McDowell in taking concepts as filling out the space of

the subjects reasons. The conceptual content of experience is content that canfigure in the subjects reasons for belief and action where the subjects reasons are

identified with contents that figure in inferences.8 So I take the following as a mark

of a conceptual capacity:

If subject S has a conceptual capacity for discriminating F-ness (their experi-

ence represents F-ness in some way), the representation of F-ness must be

capable of contributing to the rational organisation of their behaviour by

figuring in their inferential reasons for belief/action.

This is not uncontentious. I am assuming that the only way a content can

contribute to the rational organisation of behaviour is by being available for the

subject to deploy in inference. This assumption would be denied by what we

might call the Quick Argument for nonconceptual content. The quick argument

says that nonconceptual content is content that figures in non-inferential reasons

for action, e.g. the content deployed in imagistic reasoning. The best reason for

endorsing such an argument is that it introduces a level of content possession of

which can be used to explain full-blown conceptual content.9 The case is not

proven or straightforward.10 For one thing, there is a danger that the quick

argument reintroduces the given, the avoidance of which has been central toMcDowells defence of conceptualism. Campbell argues that reference to objects

requires selective attention and that selective attention is the notion we need to

describe the link between propositional and imagistic content.11 This seems right,

8 It matters that it is the subjects reasons, not a third-party account of the subjects reasons forbelief/action, that is stake here, cf McDowell, 1994 p. 163ff for use of the distinctionbetween the subjects reasons for action and the theorists account of reasons for the

subjects actions. Peacockes argument against McDowell seems to ignore this distinction,cf McDowell, 1998 and also Peacocke, 1998.

9 Campbell, 1997; Heck, 2000; Eilan, 2001.

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but runs the risk of leaving conceptual content detached from anchorage in objects

and anchored only in the nonconceptual imagistic level of content. That would

threaten the epistemological advantage of the conceptualist position that has the

conceptual content of our reasons reaching right out to things.12

If the case fornonconceptual content rests solely on the quick argument, the phenomenological

point of nonconceptual content is left undeveloped. It also threatens the return of

the given. The argument that I give turns on getting the phenomenological detail

of auditory experience right. The position I defend is compatible with Campbells

account of nonconceptual content, but the route I take shows why the concern

about the given is unfounded. My concern is to show the phenomenological place

of nonconceptual content, to show that it exists regardless of its potential role in

explaining the existence of conceptual content.

Given the above as the mark of conceptual content, the trick to showing thatnonconceptual content has a role to play in characterising personal level experience

is to find ways of discriminating things in experience that cannot contribute to the

subjects rational organisation of their behaviour. At the same time, such compon-

ents must not drop through into the merely causal determinants of behaviour at

the sub-personal level. The simple idea that I want to explore can then be summed

up as follows:

The capacity to discriminate F-ness as contributing to the content of the

subjects experience is nonconceptual if and only if the capacity cannot

contribute to the subjects rational organisation of their behaviour.

As noted, much hangs on what it means for a capacity to discriminate F-ness to

contribute to the subjects rational organisation of their behaviour. That is what

makes such a capacity conceptual and its absence is what leaves it nonconceptual.

The first task in clarifying the case for nonconceptual content is to put more

substance to this key idea.

2. The Mark of Conceptual Content

Consider hierarchies of concepts such that concepts of level 1 fall under a sortal of

level 2 which in turn falls under a sortal of level 3, etc. For example, let the

concepts of red, green and magenta be level 1 concepts; colour a level 2 concept;

the way things look a level 3 concept. Suppose subject S has an experience that

represents magenta, they discriminate it. McDowells strategy is to say that even if

they lack the appropriate level 1 expression for the concept, their experience can

be kidnapped conceptually by:



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such-and-such is that colour.

McDowell, 1994, 1998, is clear that the conceptual content represented by the

phrase that colour is the content of a short-lived recognitional capacity; it is not acontent in which the level 2 concept colour figures as a componentcall that a

compound demonstrative concept. For the moment I ignore the distinction

between recognitional and compound demonstrative concepts, although I shall

later discharge this.13

Suppose that the concept deployed in the kidnapping strategy is a compound

demonstrative concept. The case for nonconceptual content will be illustrated if

we can produce examples of subjects who are novices with the sortal required to

deploy the kidnapping strategy. In the case of colour examples we would need a

subject who had no grasp of the sortal concept colour and yet had the ability todiscriminate, say, magenta, so that we would say that their experience represented

such-and-such as being magenta. Their lack of grasp of the sortalcolourwould then

make the kidnapping strategy unavailable, for it requires that the content of their

experience is the content expressed by:

such-and-such is that colour

but, by hypothesis, the concept that colour is not available to them.14 In the visual

case it is hard to see how such an example could be available. In part, this is due to

the sophistication of our visual concepts and the central role they play in determin-

ing action. In auditory perception this structure is easier to satisfy. Testing the

phenomenology of music perception against such a theoretical structure is, how-

ever, only of value if I discharge the assumption that the distinction between

recognitional and compound demonstrative concepts does not matter. Discharging

this assumption turns on a key mark of conceptual content in McDowells theory.

The mark of conceptual content for McDowell is that concepts fill out the

space of reasons. This means that concepts are content components that have the

potential to figure in the subjects rational organisation of their behaviour (beliefs

and actions). For a representation of F-ness to be conceptual it must have thepotential to figure in Ss reasons for behaviour. On the assumption that contents

that figure in reasons do so in virtue of figuring in inferences, then in order to have

this potential, the representation of F-ness must have a capacity to recur in

combination with other contents in inferences. By such means the representation

13 Concepts formed from sortals and demonstratives are property-dependent concepts in thesame way that demonstrative ways of thinking about objects are object-dependent. Propertydependent concepts are ways of thinking about properties that depend on the subject

keeping the property in perceptual experience. Cf Luntley, 2002 for further discussion ofexamples.

14 Lack of the sortal concept colouris not the same as lack of use of the word colour. A subject

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ofF-ness satisfies the Generality Constraint on content.15 So, if the representation

ofF-ness is to fall within the subjects space of reasons, it must be possible for it to

be entertained and recur in contents other than that in which it is given in

experience thus underpinning the rational connectivity of the contents availableto the subject. In short, suppose S has an experience that includes the content

expressed by:

such-and-such is F.

If the representation ofF-ness is conceptual it must have the capacity to recur in

other propositions, e.g.,

All Fs are G

making it rational for S to conclude that:

such-and-such is G.

The subject might not exploit the connections rationality provides, what matters is

that the representation has the capacity to be combined with other representations

to underwrite the rational linkages of belief and of belief and action. That the

representation has the capacity to be so deployed must, of course, be understood in

terms of the subjects conceptual repertoire at the time of the experience, it cannot

be a capacity for rational deployment that depended on an increase in Ss cognitive

abilities. In conclusion, if the representation of F-ness is conceptual it must have

the combinatorial capacity typical of propositional components without S needing

to acquire any further information or concepts. This is what it means for the

representation to be available to Ss reasons. The test I propose for this is to say that

if the representation is available to Ss reasons, there must be an argument con-

cerning Ss beliefs, that exploits the representation, the validity of which is trans-

parent to S. The requirement of transparency is to ensure that the validity of the

argument does not require further information or cognitive enhancement.16

For example, suppose S attends to a magenta coloured item and they have only a

very limited stock of colour names and a poor descriptive vocabulary for colours.

We say that the appropriate part of the representational content of their experience

is characterised by the proposition expressed by:

such-and-such is that colour.

15

Evans, 1982 was clear that nonconceptual content failed the generality constraint p. 104 n.22,but then his notion of nonconceptual content was not a personal-level notion of content.Peacocke (1992), Bermudez (1995), Heck (2000) also acknowledge that nonconceptual



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If it is correct to see this proposition composed of conceptual components, then,

regardless of whether it is a compound demonstrative content or the content of a

short-lived recognitional capacity, the that colour must be capable of figuring in

other propositions inferentially connected in a way that is transparent to S. Forexample, if S possesses the concepts of brightness and attractiveness, then, without

increase in Ss cognitive abilities, the validity of:

That colour is bright.

Bright colours are attractive.

That colour is attractive.

will be transparent to S. In other words, the validity of the inference does not require

an identity premiss linking the first occurrence of that colour and its occurrence in

the conclusion. The inference exploits the subjects capacity to hold that contentsteady in thought and re-employ it in different whole thoughts. This is mastery of a

concept and the transparent validity of the inference exploits Ss mastery. The that

colour must then be a conceptual content. A further argument against restricting

reasons to inferential reasons is given by Hurley (2001) who thinks that practical

reasoning that exploits a subjects perceptions can employ reasons to act that lack the

hallmark context-freedom of conceptual inferential reasons. I think Hurley overstates

this context-freedom; see also Brewer, 2001 and Noe, 2002.

For any account that takes seriously the demonstratively expressed conceptual

contents exploited in McDowells kidnapping strategy it will have to be the case

that the rational deployment of such contents is context-bound. Context bound

contents will only be available for context-bound inferences. This is something

made clear by the requirement of transparency above. The transparency of an

inference turns on the subject being able to trade on the identity of sense of the

relevant component and that is something that, in turn, is context-sensitive. To

suggest that the concept of practical reason automatically requires a notion of

nonconceptual content because practical reasons do not enjoy the context-freedom

of reasons fully expressed linguistically is to ignore the very idea of context-bound

concepts that is central to the conceptualists account of experience. It is also to

assume an overly abstract model of concepts and to work with too crude a conceptof the practical.17 I think there is little value in pursuing the issue who is right

about whether practical reasoning shows the existence of nonconceptual contents

and reasons without first getting a lot more detail in the examples that show that

the conceptualist position is incomplete. I propose then to continue to assume that

believing/acting for a reason requires possession of a content that is available to

inference. This might strengthen the conceptualist position, but it ends up allowing

a more discriminative range of options with regard to conceptual practical reasons

and, crucially, the existence of nonconceptual content.

17 See Noe, 2002 p. 187 for a criticism of Hurleys overly reflective model of conceptual

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The account of what it is for a representation to have the capacity to figure in

the subjects rational organisation of their behaviour places a constraint on the

operation of the kidnapping strategy. There is a danger of being too liberal with the

kidnapping strategy and thinking that a putative nonconceptual content can bekidnapped just in case the subject is prone to respond with:

I f that colour

where f is an attitude verb such as, like, want, dislike. The existence of that

response alone is insufficient to kidnap the content. For the kidnap to work the

representation must be available to figure in an argument that is transparent to the

subject. I shall proceed as if the kidnapping strategy employs compound demonstra-

tive concepts. The strategy will then be twofold. First, I shall show that there can berepresentational contents of experience that cannot be kidnapped by such means

because the subject lacks grasp of the appropriate sortal concept. Second, I shall

develop the examples in sufficient detail to show that there is nothing to the idea that

a concept based on a short-lived recognitional capacity might suffice for kidnapping

the representation instead. I start with the compound demonstrative concept.

The formulation of the first part of my strategy camouflages an important and

interesting range of cases that pose difficulties for the nonconceptualist. These are

cases in which the subjects possession of the sortal concept is expressed with higher

order sortals. Recall the hierarchy of concepts mentioned above. Suppose the

concepts exploited in visual perception arrange in the following hierarchy:

Level 1 concepts: magenta, green, circular, dodecahedron . . .

Level 2 concepts: colour, shape, brightness . . .

Level 3 concepts: how things look, . . .

Level 2 concepts are the sortals for level 1 concepts, and level 3 is sortal for level 2.

I use F for level 1 concepts; G for level 2 concepts and H for level 3 concepts.

The obvious way of exploiting the kidnapping requirement is to say that a

representation of F-ness is kidnapped just in case the subject finds transparent anargument employing thatG. But that leaves out of the picture the possibility that

the subjects mastery of G is, in turn expressed contextually and manifest in their

finding transparent arguments employing thatH. Of course, for use of thatH, to

manifest grasp of the concept of colour, let alone colour concepts, we will demand

that behaviour manifests a discriminative ability to distinguish between ways things

look, and behaviour here will have to include taking the validity of the appropriate

inferences as transparent. In principle, however, the expression of the sortal that the

subject exploits in order for the representation to be kidnapped need not belong at

the next level up from the target concept. Allowing that the appropriate sortalcould belong at higher levels introduces the possibility that a large segment of

ld i i i l i if d i l



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complex nestings of thatH. The possibility of constructing such an account of

concept possession for significant segments of our conceptual explains the power

latent in the kidnapping manoeuvre.18 Acknowledging this power means that we

have to read the kidnapping strategy in a way that places no a priori restriction onthe linguistic level from which the sortal is taken. What matters is that from

whatever level the sortal is taken, its use manifests a combinatorial potential

appropriate for the target concept. Being competent with a concept, or being

a novice, is not a matter of vocabulary.

In the light of the above clarification of the way the kidnapping strategy works we can

now formulate a confirmation condition for the existence of nonconceptual content:19

Confirmation condition: A representation ofF-ness will be nonconceptual if

(a) the subject can discriminateF-ness, (b) the subject is a novice with respectto the sortal concepts required for generating demonstrative kidnapping

concepts, (c) the subject fails to treat transparently the validity of inferences

that exploit a conceptual representation ofF-ness.

Satisfaction of clause (c) discharges my assumption that it does not matter that

I ignore the distinction between compound demonstrative and short-lived recogni-

tional concepts.

3. The Sound of Music

In order to construct examples to illustrate the existence of nonconceptual content

I borrow some terminology from DeBelliss treatment of these issues.20 DeBellis has

argued that an important part of the content our musical experience is nonconcep-

tual. I agree with his conclusion, but not with his argument. DeBellis distinguishes

18 The idea of practical concept mastery is frequently overlooked. I return to it in the nextsection. Bermudez (1997) employs a simple dichotomy between practical engagedunreflective representations and reflective theoretical representations. Bermudez representsCampbell (1994) as offering just such a simple contrast, as if a practical engaged grasp ofcausation in actionhasto be unreflective and thereby not a conceptual one. In fact, it seem tome that Campbell says no such thing. For sure, his notion of causal indexical representation isconcerned with an immersed grasp of causation in action that is unreflective, e.g. seeCampbell, 1997a, p. 634. This does not, however, mean that there cannot also be apractical form of representation which is reflective and hence conceptual without requiringthe apparatus of theoretical representations. Indeed, Campbell (1997b) allows that option, seecomment at p. 658 contrasting the theoretical linguists explanations of language structurewith the grammarians practical familiarity with structure. From now on, I use practical topick out an immersed engaged conceptual representation. The concept of practice that I amusing is, for present purposes, a concept of something that is in principle open to reflection.

19

This is a strong condition the meeting of which confirms the existence of nonconceptualcontent. I do not rule out cases in which the subject is competent with the appropriate sortalconcept, but in such cases everything turns on the empirical matter of the sophistication of

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between weakly nonconceptual content and strongly nonconceptual content. The

former is open to the kidnapping strategy, for it captures elements of musical

experience for which the subject lacks music-theoretic concepts and that leaves

such elements open to kidnap by other concepts.21

DeBelliss notion of stronglynonconceptual content captures the content of a hearing that is not the exercise of

any concept.22 This is a notion of content for which the subject is conceptually

blind. The problem with DeBelliss case for strongly nonconceptual content is that

the argument draws upon empirical research into listening abilities which are plaus-

ibly seen as involving discriminations operating at the sub-personal level.23 Such

examples do not address the phenomenological issue that I want to get into focus.

Where DeBellis considers personal level characterisations of experiences, most of the

time he contrasts listening informed by music-theoretic concepts and listening not so

informed.

24

Apart from the fact that lack of deployment of music-theoretic conceptsdoes not amount to a lack of concepts, this dichotomy leaves too much lumped

together on the second category. No case for nonconceptual content can be made

unless we can rule out the sort of contextualised practical conceptual listening that is

characteristic of many musical idioms, especially those with a strong folk tradition.

For example, jazz and blues musicians often have a comprehensive and

deeply comprehending perception of music without that perception being

informed by music theory. They have a sense of immersion in a musical land-

scape of melodies, harmonies and rhythms that they navigate in a manner not

unlike our navigation of the spatial environment.25 This is a form of practical

knowledge and practical belief that lies between the novice listener and the

musical theorist.26 Indeed, to say that this form of musical knowledge lies

between the poles that, most of the time, DeBellis, considers is already to

beg important questions. For many purposes, it is the hands-on, ears-alert

understanding of where you are in a melody or harmonic progression that

matters, not the theoretical grasp.

The key concept that I want to take from DeBellis is that of an expectation.27

Expectations are components of experience that have satisfaction conditions. In

21 See the discussion of Budd at pp. 268. See p. 28 for DeBelliss acknowledgement of thekidnapping strategy.

22 DeBellis, p. 57.23 See the discussion of pitch representation at pp. 613.24 It is, for example, the topic of Chapter 5 although, by that point of the book, his interest is

not in the topic of nonconceptual content as such, but in understanding the differencesbetween novice and theoretically informed listeners.

25 See Sudnow (1993) for explorations of the phenomenology of jazz piano that are full of thesesorts of remarks.

26 This sort of practical competence is precisely the sort of concept mastery that comes into

view once we acknowledge the idea that concept possession can be generated from complexnestings of what are, from the music-theoretic point of view, rather crude sortals. See section2 above, especially footnote 18.



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listening to music our experience gives us expectations about melodic, harmonic

and rhythmic progression. We can think of these expectations in terms of sets of

subjective probabilities that capture the way we expect a piece of music to

develop. These expectations can be satisfied or not; it is this that makes themrepresentational. To take a simple harmonic example, on hearing a 7th chord,

most listeners will have a strong expectation of the related tonic; hearing a D7

chord creates a strong expectation that a G major chord is due. The experience of

the D7 chord has a content that represents a sort of tension, it has a pullingness-

to-a-resolution quality about the experience of the chord. It is this quality that

captures the expectation. Subsequently, on hearing the tonic chord, most listen-

ers have a sense of completion, the music is at rest and there is no further

expectation about what comes next. I shall characterise the content of these

respective experiences as:

(1) It sounds V7

and,

(2) It sounds I.

I use V7 to represent the dominant 7th chord and I to represent the tonic. (1)

and (2) are the theoreticians ways of cataloguing the expectational content of

experience; they are not ways of characterising the content by the subject. I shall

just say that, for the subject, they have expectations. The expectational content of

(1) is that it assigns a high probability to:

(3) It will sound I,

an expectation that is satisfied when the experience represented by (2) occurs.

Expectations can be treated in terms of probabilities assigned to propositions, but

only from the theoreticians point of view. From the point of view of the

phenomenology of the subject there is no such propositional content. The issueis whether such experiences can be rationally inert. I shall assume that expectations

are rationally inert; the test is to provide an example that illustrates this. The

examples involve a novice listener.

By a novice I mean someone who lacks both music-theoretic knowledge and

the practical competence of a musical performer and, analogously, they lack a

practical competence at listening. The practical competence of a performer might

depend on music-theoretic knowledge or it might depend on a demonstratively

articulated musical knowledge. By the same token, although this is more difficult

and rarer than practical competence at performance, there can be a practicallistening competence that consists in a demonstratively articulated knowledge of

i d b i h i k l d S hi i d f hi

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out a harmonic or melodic progression and recognise it, where the recognition

consists in your ability to place yourself within it without necessarily being able to

articulate in music-theoretic terms where you are. This is a complicated achieve-

ment. A simpler illustration of practical listening would be the case of a guitarist who,on hearing a tune, can recognise the chord progression and find it immediately on

the guitar neck. Guitarists can survive with only a rudimentary grasp of theory. It is

common to recognise a progression with, as it were, your fingers without stopping

to think theoretically about which key you are in or which chords you are playing.28

Exploiting such recognitional capacities gives the listener with practical competence

a rich systematicity to their musical experience.

In contrast, the novice has no systematicity to their musical listening. It is

doubtful that anyone is a novice with respect to all aspects of musical hearing,

but most of us are novices with respect to some. That is all that is required for whatfollows. We need cases in which the novice has an experience that represents some

musical featureF. The experience representsFbecause it produces the expectation

appropriate forF-ness, but the discrimination has no generality to it.

Consider in more detail our experience of tonality. Much music in the western

tradition gives us an experience of being in a key. The music has a harmonic

structure to do with our sense of tension and rest within it. The harmonic structure

of simple tunes is normally representable with three chords based on the first,

fourth and fifth notes of the scale: the tonic, sub-dominant and dominant or

dominant 7th. We represent these as I, IV and V or V7. The use of V7 instead

of V gives a stronger sense of tonal centre, for the sound of a dominant 7th chord

has such a powerful pull towards the tonic that it is almost impossible to hear a

dominant 7th chord without a sense of tonality centred on the respective tonic. I

suggest that the sense of tonality produced by hearing the dominant 7th is, for the

novice, a nonconceptual representational content. This sense of tonality means that

if the subject hears the tonic chord, the music will sound at rest. The case I am

suggesting involves no more than the isolated hearing of a 7th chord and the way

that such a hearing produces a sense of tonality. This is representational because it

has correctness conditions and, furthermore, they are correctness conditions to

which the subject has some access, for, if they hear the tonic chord the subject willbe disposed to say That sounds right. And, similarly, should some other chord be

28 Like the piano, the guitar offers not only the opportunity for playing more than one note at atime, but it has all its notes spatially arranged under the hands. Competence with chordshapes exploits a spatial sense of where the chords lie and what shape they have. A similarpoint applies to scales. The difference between, say, a Major, Minor, or blues pentatonic scalein so far as it is grasped by anything other than how they sound is often grasped in terms ofdifferent spatial patterns across the neck. Such practical competence requires an extensiverange of recognitional capacities, but it does not require mastery of music-theoretic concepts.

Both the case of the jazz musician and the guitarist are best conceived as subjects who exploitrecognitional capacities for the relevant musical properties, recognitional capacities that getexpressed demonstratively. I am still ignoring the distinction between recognitional-based



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played, they will affirm, That sounds wrong. Let me make this suggestion more

precise.

I shall say that the novice has an experience, on hearing the chord of D7, that

I shall represent as,

(4) That sounds V7.

That is to say, there is a way that the music sounds that indicates that hearing G

major will be experienced as the music moving to a position of rest. The experi-

ence of tonality need not be the same as expecting that a G major chord will come

next. The expectation about what comes next can be a different expectation,

although in the limited case I am currently considering, the two thingsa sense

of tonality and the sense of what is due nextinvariably have the same content. Inmore complex contexts the content of the experience can be more sophisticated.29

I use (4) to represent, from the theoreticians point of view, the representational

content of the novices experience. What I am assuming as uncontroversial is the

claim that the novice has a sense of tension in the music that amounts to the

expectation that the harmonic progression to the tonic is called for.30 Their

experience assigns a high probability to,

(5) That will sound I.

The issue concerns the nature of the representational content of the expectation. If

it is correct to say that the novice has a sense of tension or pull in the music, then it

is legitimate to say that their experience discriminates the V7-ness of the music.

Hence, it is legitimate to employ (4) to represent the representational content of

their experience.

Can the content of (4) be kidnapped? To be kidnapped, the representation of

V7-ness must be capable of figuring in Ss space of reasons. It is not enough to

kidnap this merely to suggest that S hears,

(6) That soundsthat way,

where that way is either the expression of a recognitional capacity or a demon-

strative concept. Simply claiming a recognitional capacity is too quick.

29 For example, hearing a D7 after a D major chord might produce an expectation that a Gmajor will follow, but this does not necessarily mean that the tonality is centred on the key ofG. It is common, on hearing D7 following D to have a sense of tonality centred on D. In partthis is due to the D major chord setting the tonal centre, it is also because the harmonic

transition in the move from D to D7 is a common move in a twelve bar blues to introducethe sub-dominant at bar 5. In such a case, the tonal centre stays on D, and the G major chordis the sub-dominant.

416 M. Luntley


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An expectation is, even if nonconceptual, a capacity to represent a property that

can be redeployed. It is a repeatable component of experiences over time. The

repeatability of the capacity to represent a property is not enough to make it

conceptual. What makes a recognitional capacity conceptual is its potential tocontribute to Ss rational organisation of their behaviour. In order for that way

to be a conceptual representation there must be some argument the validity of

which is transparent to S without S acquiring further information or cognitive

enhancement. The basic idea for nonconceptual content is very simple.

Nonconceptual representations are ways in which we respond to the world that

we are not able to rationally organise. They are representations that provide us

with a response to X, but not a rational response; they are not responses that can

figure in the rational organisation of behaviour.31 So the novice responds to V7,

they discriminate it, but their discrimination does not and can not rationally bearupon their behaviour. This is not to say that the nonconceptual representation

introduces an element of the given in experience. The nonconceptual representa-

tion provide a means of orientating directly to the environment, but it is an

orientation that produces no rational pattern to behaviour. If such an orientation

is to be kidnapped, we need a lot more detail to see whether a kidnap works.

First, suppose the expectation is to be kidnapped by a concept figuring in subject

position. This requires that there should a transparent argument of the form,

That way sound is F

Fs are G

That way sound is G.

For the novice, by definition, there is a shortage of candidates for the concepts Fand

G. In order for the representation to be kidnapped, there has to be the space in the

subjects conceptual repertoire in which the representation can exercise the combi-

natorial potential that makes it conceptual, rather than nonconceptual. Of course,

there could be a conceptual content available to the novice, e.g., if the music does

not resolve as they expect, they hear the sound as not nice. But what we need is a

conceptual content with respect to V7-ness, not nice does not capture the expecta-tion hears V7. Indeed, with respect to non-satisfaction of the expectation produced

on hearing a dominant 7th, not nice is a sophisticated concept, it presupposes that

the subject possess some means for detecting the dominant 7th but it does not

provide access to, its sense does not determine, the property of being a dominant 7th.

31 By rational organisation of behaviour I mean an organisation in which the content isavailable to the subject in inference. Anyone who thinks that spatial reasoning deploysnonconceptual contents simply because the contents are deployed in imagination rather

than pure thought is in danger of assuming too intellectualist a model of inference. Asnoted above, demonstrative inference has to be understood in less than a fully articulatedlinguistic structure. I prefer to load the dice in favour of the conceptualist and still find space



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The novice lacks the appropriate space in which the representation can, as it

were, be exercised. In general, a subjects inarticulacy with respect to a feature does

not entail lack of a conceptual orientation. It does, however, make it harder to see

what possession of a conceptual orientation can consist in. In visual perceptionthere is normally a large number of potential sortal concepts available that can be

exploited in the kidnapping strategy. Even if the subject lacks the appropriate

sortal, the range of concepts that can be applied to visual perception by normal

subjects means that appeal to short-lived recognitional capacities to kidnap putative

nonconceptual representations is in line with the richness of the conceptual

resources of the normal subjectthe content of the recognitional capacity is

secured by the surrounding conceptual structure of the subjects repertoire. In

auditory perception there is a much smaller standard stock of concepts available for

organising auditory perception. In auditory perception, our relative inarticulacyshows up a conceptual naivety of an order that simply would not be warranted

when considering examples from visual perception.

It is a condition on applying a recognitional capacity, or demonstrative concept,

to kidnap a putative nonconceptual representation that there be an argument the

validity of which is transparent to the subject. No argument with the representa-

tion in subject position appears to be available. There is a sense in which the

subject recognises the V7-ness of the music: they discriminate it; it sounds familiar;

it makes other musical events sound right and others sound out of place. None of

this, however, shows that there is a conceptual representation of V7-ness, for in

order for that be in place, the subject would have to find transparent the validity of

an argument that turned on the concept of V7-ness. But for the novice, there is no

such argument. The novice lacks the sortals for constructing a compound demon-

strative concept and therefore lacks the conceptual space in which a recognitional

capacity could exercise its conceptual muscle. Consider now the possibility that the

representation could be kidnapped in predicate position.

Could our subject not think something like this,

(7) x sounds that1 way

things that sound that1 way sound that2 wayx will sound that2 way

where that1way is the concept that kidnaps the representation of V7? Clearly, the

subject might think something like (7). The issues is whether we can show that

their that1way has the right sense to pick out V7. (7) is easy to say, but difficult to

mean with the appropriate sense. I have three arguments against such a kidnap.

First, for the kidnap to work we need to be sure that the that1way has the correct

reference. Our subject might speak of things sounding that way, but the issue is

whether they have a sense that picks out the V7 character that I am claimingthe novice can hear. For sure the novice can hear the unfinished quality of the

i i i h i ll i l b h d h h h i h

418 M. Luntley


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in which a piece of music can sound harmonically incompletein the right

harmonic context the minor seventh of the second note of the scale (IIm7) can

have a strong pull towards the tonic. By hypothesis, the novice can hear the

incompleteness of the music, but they cannot conceptually discriminate betweenthese different kinds of incompleteness. They need have no sense that a D7 chord

is similar in this respect to a C7 as opposed to an Am7. Why then do they hear the

harmonic incompleteness of the music? The subject has a conceptual content of

incompleteness, but this is a content that does not pick out the V7 quality of the

music. There are many ways of sounding harmonically incomplete. So incom-

plete does not represent V7. Given the vague character of incomplete, why then

do they employ this concept? On my account, the answer is that they hear the

music as incomplete because they have a representation of the V7 in virtue of the

expectation of the tonic that that representation captures, they have a nonconcep-tual representation of V7. Without this, it becomes a puzzle why they hear the

incomplete nature of the music. So, if that1way is something like incomplete it

will not do the job; its sense is too crude to pick out the feature to which novices

are able to respond. At the same time, without the nonconceptual representation of

V7, we are left with a puzzle about why they say the music is incomplete. The

answer, on my account, is that they are troubled by the music, but they can be

troubled in different ways. They hear different kinds of troublings even though

they cannot conceptually discriminate between them.32

Second, could the that1 way be a recognitional concept? Could our subject

simply have a recognitional capacity for picking out V7s? This is not, given the

argument against kidnapping in the subject position, a viable strategy. For the that1way to be a recognitional capacity for picking out V7, there would need to be

sufficient conceptual surround to ensure that it was a sense with the right reference.

But that surround is, for the novice, absent. My suggestion is that the novice

responds each time to V7 chords in a similar way without realising that there is a

sense in which their response is similar, beyond the fact that the music sounds

incomplete. That is not enough to fix a V7. Suppose a subject has only ever heard

V7 incompleteness, that still does not make their sense of incomplete a sense that

picks out the V7-ness to which they are responding, for if they then come to hear aIIm7 kind of incomplete that too will sound incomplete, where incomplete is a

conceptual content.

Third, suppose our novice comes to recognise conceptually the transition from

dominant 7th to tonic. Suppose that can figure in exercises of judgement as one of

those kinds of completions. Perhaps they even come to recognise subtly different

kinds of completions, e.g. the completion from the minor 7th on the second note of

32

The explanation of the conceptual content incomplete in virtue of the nonconceptualrepresentation of V7 fits Campbells model of attention as the link between conceptual andnonconceptual content, but offers no reason to think that expectations reintroduce the given.



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the scale to tonic. Now, unless they can pick out dominant 7th chords, their ability

to recognise the move from dominant 7th to tonic would be a mystery. But there is

no reason to suppose that because they can conceptually pick out the relevant type of

completion, they can also conceptually pick out the 7th chord. Therefore, we canconsider the case of someone who conceptually discriminates the type of completion

but cannot conceptually discriminate the 7th. Their conceptual ability is then

unexplained. On my account, it is explained in virtue of their nonconceptual

representations of the dominant 7th and tonics, a discrimination finer than the

conceptual discriminations in virtue of which they rationalise their behaviour.

What if the novice listener hears a piece of atonal music, or something in which

they can detect no tonal centre? Suppose they have an experience characterised by

(4), but the music does not resolve in the way they expect and it concludes on an

unrelated chord. Suppose our novice then says,

(8) I dont like that.

Would this not show that the representation of the V7-ness figured in the rational

organisation of their behaviour?33 I think not. The idea behind the kidnapping

strategy using (8) must be this: The that in (8) is a conceptual representation for

the dischordant way in which the music sounded when the expectation established

by (4) was thwarted. If the representation for the dischordant way the music

sounded is conceptual and fit to kidnap the that way in (4), it would have to

pick out the way such that the inference in which it transparently figured were

sufficient to manifest a representation of V7. But, as I have argued, there are no

such inferences. There are, of course, inferences available to the subject whose

validity is transparent. For example,

That awful sound is F

Fs are G

That awful sound is G

What is at issue is not just whether a concept is at play for the novice, but whetherthere is a concept that represents V7-ness. The kidnapping strategy is a powerful

strategy because whenever a subject lacks the normal way for representing a prop-

erty, they can normally be presumed to possess another sense for the same reference.

They lack the music theoretic concept for a dominant 7th, but they might have a

practical recognitional concept for it. Such a concept must still, of course, have the

appropriate referencethe property in question. In the case of the novice, the lack

of conceptual surround means that whatever inferences are transparent for them,

these are insufficient to provide a focus for a sense that determines the right

reference. The inferences that the novice deploys show, at best, that their that is

420 M. Luntley


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21/26

sensitivities to expectations, combining them in sophisticated ways. And this can be

just as true of visual experiences as of auditory ones. Bell provides a compelling

account of the experience when a painting previously seen as stubbornly prob-

lematic begins to acquire a point.34

Bell is keen to insist that when the painting beginsto have a point this does not depend on the subject providing an interpretation.

The change in experience is not conceptual. I think this is right and I think the

apparatus that I have been deploying in the auditory case makes sense of such cases.

As you look at an abstract painting that initially fails to generate any response, one

of things that happens is that you set up a framework of expectations about line,

tone and colour. Perhaps you begin to allow your expectations with respect to

such things to tune in to patterns that are not to be found in representational art?35

The point can be very simple. Consider, for example, such apparently simple art

works as Matisses Blue Nude I & II. The art lies not in tearing out pieces ofcoloured paper to represent the human form, but in producing something in which

the balance between elements is just so satisfyingly right. And that, I suggest, is, in

part, a matter of meeting visual expectations.

Here is a more complex example that reveals something common in our experi-

ence of popular music. Consider the chord sequence A, Em7, D as experienced by a

novice. A common way of hearing this sequence is as a movement from dominant to

tonic via the minor seventh of the second note of the scale; that is the harmonic

sequence V, IIm7, I.36 The novice non-conceptually hears the harmonic progression

V, IIm7, I. The novice need have no conceptual mastery of the harmonic relation-

ships involved here, either music-theoretic or practical. To say the novice non-

conceptually hears the progression V, IIm7, I, is to do no more than note the

character of their expectations. The sequence feels complete, it has come to rest.

Consider now the difference if the same chord sequence is played in a different

voicing of the chords.37 This is still the sequence A, Em7, D but it is a voicing that,

for many people, is recognisable as the opening sequence of the James Taylor song,

Fire and Rain. What is significant about this voicing of the chord progression is

that it produces an expectation that is absent from the first version of the progres-

sion. In the new version, the expectation is that the tonal centre rests on A, not D.

This means that the expectations can be represented by saying that the novice non-conceptually hears I, Vm7, IV. Each of the chords has a different harmonic value.

34 Bell, 1987 pp. 2367.35 Like tuning your ear into modern jazz.36 If these chords are played in root position on a guitar they are typically heard with the

harmonic values indicated.37 On the guitar the difference is achieved by playing the A chord not in the standard root

position, but with the top three strings played in the normal F major shape moved five fretsup, the Em7 played with the same shape two frets lower and the D played in root position.The different voicings of the A chord are then: (listing the string values from the 5th string

422 M. Luntley


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The listener is left with a sense of a different tonal centre manifested in the

expectation that they will get chord I againanother A chord.38

The change in expectation illustrates something that is, I suspect, very common

in our experience of popular music. Our experience and recognition of popularsongs is extraordinarily sensitive, for much popular music is built around subtle

variants of cliched musical devices. We learn to associate very particular voicings of

chord progressions and other features of orchestration and accompaniment with

this music. There is a level at which our experience discriminates precisely that

song, that chord voicing, rather than at a level at which the song has elements in

common with others. We frequently have no concept of the respects in which the

song is similar to others. It is important to recall that the expectations at play here

are not to be thought of as perceptual cues that prompt recognition where a

perceptual cue is something that operates below the level of conscious awareness.The cues are elements of phenomenology. The novice hears the progression in

ways that produce different expectations. In the first case, musical experience has a

phenomenological sense of completeness. This is absent in the second version that

requires a further A chord and probably, beyond that, an E followed by Gmaj7 to

complete the opening sequence to the song. It is musical experience at the personal

level that is acutely sensitive to changes of chord voicings. It takes an experience of

just the right version of the chord progression to set up the expectation that is

characteristic of an experience of the song. It does not matter whether the novice

recognises the tune. All that matters is that the experience changes with the change

in chord voicing. And even if it were claimed that the change were recognition

driven, as a result of a recognition of the gestalt whole of the song, it is still the case

that there is an element to the experience in the second case, an expectation, that is

there to be met or un-met. The element in question is not the recognition of the

song. That is conceptuala that song conceptual content. The element in

question is the representation of the key, the expectation that picks out the

chord that brings the harmonies to rest.

It is the musical sophisticate who will notice the similarities between one

popular song and another, where the sophisticated listener has either a music-

theoretic or practical grasp of musical structure. But that is conceptual. Our noviceenjoys a song, their expectations are played with, whether or not they recognise it.

If they do recognise the song, the recognition need involve no exercise of a general

capacity to detect similarities in structures of expectations.

The general idea in these examples is of expectations as components of experience

such that their satisfaction conditions discriminate particular musical events and

properties and yet have no rational bearing on the satisfaction conditions of other

expectations. Having an expectation is having a representational content without, as

38 There are a number of explanations for this change in expectations. One explanation is thatthe second voicing of the chords produces a descending sequence of notes which emphasises



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it were, knowing what to do with it. The subject of experience with non-conceptual

content cannot deploy this content in rational action. This explains why it is easier to

construct examples that are impervious to the kidnapping manoeuvre in the auditory

case rather than in the visual. Visual perception has a more dominant role for us inaction control. It is much harder to sideline visual perception from our action than it

is to sideline auditory perception. It is not, however, impossible.

Suppose you walk into a familiar room in which the furniture has been subtly

re-arranged, perhaps a chair is moved slightly closer to the window. It is possible to

have an experience of things being not quite right, not quite as expected, but not

be able to say in what respect this is so. A related example is that of the person who

revisits the botanic gardens last seen as a child. They are puzzled. Everything looks

wrong, they find the place troubling. Their expectations are being continually

thwarted. They may, or may not, eventually cotton-on that the difference is thatthey have grown up and an environment that had consistently prompted expect-

ations of being dwarfed has lost this relative hold over them.

Once the key point of the idea of nonconceptual content is grasped, the search is

not for fine-grained representations, it is for representations which the subject

cannot, in terms of their current conceptual abilities, employ in the rational

organisation of behaviour. This is not a level of content below the conceptual or

a level of content in terms of which the application of conceptual content is in

general to be explained. That, of course, is McDowells concernit would

reintroduce the notion of the given. The troubling is not the given. It is, rather,

direct openness to the world that we cannot at present handle rationally.

The account of nonconceptual content proposed offers resources for tackling a

number of basic issues. One issue is the relation between the content of experience

appropriately ascribed to non concept possessing creatures and that enjoyed by

subjects with conceptual understanding. The obvious suggestion is that animals

without concepts have an experience the content of which troubles themthey

have nonconceptual representations. They have expectations about what will happen

next, but they do not have the resources to organise their troublings in a rational

manner. We do. To acquire concepts is to overcome your troubles. The speculative

hypothesis is that the difference here turns on having a will, coming to conceptualiseexperience in the development of human cognition is not unconnected with the

development of agency.39 The vehicle for achieving this is, as Campbell suggests,

attention. Possession of concepts requires possession of will and, for developed

human adult experience, you have to look hard, and in normally unexamined

corners, to find those areas of experience where we find it hard to exercise will.

Dept of Philosophy

University of Warwick

424 M. Luntley


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non-conceptual content and the soudn of music

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