“Art, according to Leo Tolstoy, is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are affected by these feelings and also experience them. (Leo Tolstoy What is Art London 1959).”
I intend to unpack the above quotation to investigate firstly what is meant by feelings as opposed to mood and emotions. Next, I will examine the expression of the emotions through one such art form of external signs, namely music, taking into account the several debates in the philosophy of music regarding ‘meaning’, as to whether meaning lies solely within the music itself; i.e. in the relationship between notes known as the absolutist position which argues that music’s aesthetic is contingent on the absence of emotional representation (the platonic position) or whether meaning lies outside the music in reference to the extra-musical world of concepts, actions and emotional states – the referential position. I will then explore whether and how music affects the so called ‘feelings’ of others.