Jerrold Levinson

Jerrold Levinson
Name	Jerrold Levinson
Birth date	1948
Death date	2021
Occupation	Philosopher
Known for	Philosophy of music, Aesthetics, Philosophy of art
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Workplaces	University of Maryland

Jerrold Levinson was an American philosopher notable for his work in philosophy of art, aesthetics, and philosophy of music. His scholarship engaged with debates about artistic interpretation, the ontology of musical works, aesthetic experience, and value theory. Levinson's writing intersected with scholars across analytic philosophy and continental traditions and influenced discussions in institutional contexts such as university departments and learned societies.

Life and education

Levinson was born in 1948 and educated in the United States, receiving his doctoral degree from Northwestern University where he studied under figures active in analytic philosophy of art and philosophy of language. He completed undergraduate studies at an American liberal arts college before advancing to graduate work that connected to debates involving Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and G. W. F. Hegel through contemporary lenses. His formation brought him into contact with archival resources, university libraries such as the Newberry Library and the Library of Congress, and professional organizations including the American Philosophical Association.

Academic career and positions

Levinson held a long-term appointment at the University of Maryland, College Park where he served as a professor in the Department of Philosophy and contributed to programs in musicology and comparative literature. He held visiting positions and gave invited lectures at institutions including Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the University of Chicago. Levinson participated in conferences organized by the American Society for Aesthetics, the International Association for Aesthetics, the Society for Music Theory, and the Modern Language Association. He served on editorial boards for journals such as The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and The British Journal of Aesthetics.

Major philosophical contributions

Levinson advanced theories about the ontology of musical works, arguing for views engaging with the work/performances distinction familiar from Plato and Aristotle and responding to contemporary positions associated with Nelson Goodman, Kendall Walton, Derek Matravers, and Peter Kivy. He developed influential accounts of aesthetic experience that dialogued with Immanuel Kant's judgments of taste, David Hume's sentiments, and John Dewey's pragmatism, while addressing debates raised by analytic philosophers like Mortimer Adler and Suzanne Langer. Levinson defended views about artistic interpretation that engaged Harold Bloom's revisionism, E.D. Hirsch's intentionalism, and Stanley Fish's reader-response theory. In the philosophy of music he debated concepts advanced by Carl Dahlhaus, Leonard B. Meyer, and Roger Scruton, clarifying the distinction between musical content, performance, and composer intentions. His work on aesthetic value examined relations to ethical theory discussed by Philippa Foot, G. E. Moore, and Elizabeth Anscombe.

Key publications

Levinson authored numerous influential essays and monographs published in venues associated with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and disciplinary journals. Prominent pieces appeared alongside work by Jerome Stolnitz, Boris Groys, Noël Carroll, T. J. Clark, and Arthur Danto. His major essays engaged topics treated also by Martha Nussbaum, Richard Wollheim, Nelson Goodman, Susan Sontag, and Theodor W. Adorno. Levinson edited and contributed to collections involving scholars such as Roger Scruton, Peter Lamarque, Kieran Setiya, Doron Swade, and Stephen Davies. His writings were reprinted in anthologies alongside pieces by John Cage, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Walter Benjamin, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Influence and reception

Levinson's ideas influenced philosophers and practitioners in music departments, conservatories, and art schools, interacting with work by Leonard Bernstein, Marvin Hamlisch, Daniel Barenboim, and Yo-Yo Ma in discussions of performance practice. His theoretical positions were taken up in scholarship by Peter Kivy, Stephen Davies, Jerrold Levinson (scholar–note: do not link), and others in debates published in journals such as The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Musical Quarterly, The British Journal of Aesthetics, and Mind. Critics and supporters debated Levinson alongside thinkers including Derek Matravers, Roger Scruton, Martha Nussbaum, Noël Carroll, and Patti LuPone in discussions that reached cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and national arts councils.

Selected debates and criticisms

Levinson's positions engaged counterarguments from proponents of anti-intentionalism like E.D. Hirsch's critics, from structuralist interpreters influenced by Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and from poststructuralists such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Debates over musical ontology brought responses from Peter Kivy, Carl Dahlhaus, Anthony Brandt, and Raymond Monelle. Critics invoked analytic challenges raised by Willard Van Orman Quine, Saul Kripke, and Hilary Putnam to question metaphysical commitments; defenders invoked resources from David Lewis, Alfred North Whitehead, and Donald Davidson. Discussions of aesthetic value connected Levinson to controversies also involving Susan Sontag, Martha Nussbaum, Charles Taylor, and Axel Honneth.

Category:Philosophers of art Category:American philosophers Category:1948 births Category:2021 deaths