Letter to the Editor
Abstract
the Marxian notion of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, one hardly gets a hint of what that life is which is felt! Furthermore to argue that: "Whereas universality of surface qualities confers something of a pandemic coherence, lesser degrees in interpenetration, dominance, and comingling of those sets of qualities give corresponding orders of cohesion to a work's sensuous surface" (p. 68) says little or nothing about the external factors impinging upon the act of listening and which have no origin in the qualities of the object of attention. To follow Coker's arguments through the 231 pages of his book requires not only constant back-referencing but also imposes on the reader the responsibility of providing a framework upon which to hang the various concepts discussed. Elsewhere in this journal I have raised the question as to whether we are as rational as suggested by some models when apprehending works of art-which makes me wonder whether, indeed, Professor Coker has missed that point in his search for a theory of musical aesthetics; but that is not to subscribe to the argument put forward by George Dickie (1962) that in "the case of preference or of the nature of aesthetic experience we