Aesthetics is commonly defi ned as the study of beauty, and its opposite, ugliness.

Some philos-ophers
conceive of aesthetics as applying solely to the arts or to artistic experience. However, most aesthetic
philosophers construe the disci-pline as applying more broadly to beauty and ugliness in general. The
term ‘aesthetics’ fi rst appeared in a book by Alexander Baumgarten in 1735, yet philosophical
discussions of beauty extend back thousands of years. Commentaries on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music can be
found in both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese sources. Beginning in the 1960s, the fi eld of cognitive
science became increasingly infl uential in the philosophy of mind. While much of this infl u-ence relates
to the nature of thought, reasoning, and consciousness, the impact of cognitive sci-ence has expanded
to other areas of philosophy, including aesthetics. In this chapter, no effort will be made to provide a
comprehensive survey of ideas related to musical aesthetics. Instead, it focuses more narrowly on how
cognitive science has infl uenced—and continues to infl uence—modern thinking in musical aesthetics.
This chapter concludes by arguing that cognitive neuroscience is poised to overtake philosophical
aesthetics: rather than influencing aesthetic philosophy, aesthetic philosophy is receding to a sideline
‘advisory’ role, while cognitive science takes an unaccustomed leadership position.