The Social Psychology of Music by Paul R. FarnsworthReview by: Kate Hevner MuellerThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Sep., 1958), p. 133Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/428031 .

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REVIEWS 133

controversial by Croce but which no longer arouses aestheticians. Bullough's discussion of the relation of the artist to his medium is clear and persuasive and worth reading.

ALEXANDER SESONSKE

FARNSWORTH, PAUL R. The Social Psychology of Music. New York, 1958, Dryden Press, pp. xiv + 304, $4.50. This book is a long needed, most useful and profitable reference volume. It puts into

handy and condensed form hundreds of studies otherwise unavailable to student and teacher. There is no imbalance; every aspect, experimental, theoretical, and controversial is explored with equal and impartial thoroughness, whether cul-de-sac or thoroughway.

Mr. Farnsworth, essentially a social psychologist of wide reputation, develops a cul- tural relativistic point of view which has long been a minority, but in our century is fast becoming a majority point of view in aesthetics and in criticism. Amassing all possible research and tempering his interpretation with caution, the sheer weight of the evidence lends authority to his theses.

The first function of psychological aesthetics is descriptive, its second causal, its third forecasting. These functions are illustrated and substantiated, but the possibility of experi- mental psychology yielding musical absolutes is gently but firmly repudiated. "Taste follows no absolute metaphysical rules. And even if natural science variables are among the determiners of taste-as they may well be-their importance must be slight at best. All the evidence so far gathered points to the relativity of taste, to the fact that it is cul- ture-bound not culture-free.... The teaching of taste then is essentially a process of indoctrination and the material to be learned differs somewhat from culture to culture and from period to period."

The scheme of the chapters is effective and is enhanced by brief summaries and a final glossary. Chapters on the musical scale, the interval, melody, and the language of music lead up to the nature of musical taste and its measurement. Musical abilities and their measurement follow, with properly extensive treatment, and some specific applications of music to therapy and industry are more briefly described.

The author is a scholar; for a quarter of a century he has carried forward the psychology of music, attracted other students to it, dissected its problems, probed its boundaries, invented new methods, and moved forward far beyond any other worker in this major field. The book is more easily read by the psychologist or social scientist than by the artist or philosopher. Data and arguments employ the precise and pedestrian vocabulary of indi- vidual differences, interpersonal adjustments, stimuli and mores, involuntary transfer, even correlation and factor analysis. "Psychologists who have interested themselves in the aesthetics of music aim to be scientists. They try to handle their experimental vari- ables according to accepted rules of science, and to treat their findings with a reasonable degree of statistical sophistication." The general style, too, is simple, terse, and factual. There are no obscurities but neither are there climaxes. The minutiae of each area are all in order, but the vistas seem somewhat bleak and lacking in charm.

Artist and philosopher will find this book perhaps a little strange and difficult, but very rewarding, for the author is the first to admit that since causal relations are rarely simple, therefore, "many fascinating musical problems cannot be studied by the aid of the analytic techniques currently used by the psychologist." His encyclopaedic summaries will give them a sounder footing for their own explorations in the territory beyond.

KATE HEVNER MUELLER

MACE, C. A. (ed.). British Philosophy in the Mid-Century: A Cambridge Symposium. New York, 1957, Macmillan Co., pp. 396, $5.25. This is a collection of essays, of somewhat uneven quality, written by British philos-

ophers especially for this volume; there are no reprints. Some of the essays summarize recent developments in specific branches of philosophy; others discuss particular philo- sophical problems. The single essay on aesthetics which concludes the volume-"Some

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