Toward New Aesthetic Horizons: The Case for a Pragmatist-Hermeneutic Approach to Art Music

The sociological study of classical music has largely focused on the music’s centrality in the reproduction of class distinction, and the structural determinants of legitimacy. Rooted in the influential cultural analyses of Pierre Bourdieu, and his critique of Immanuel Kant’s work on aesthetics and judgment, existing sociologies of art music largely revolve around elite consumption and the formation of eighteenth and nineteenth century cultural tastes. Accounts of the practice of contemporary art music production remain understudied in the sociological literature. The purpose of this article is to make the case that pragmatism and hermeneutics are crucial elements of a sociology of art music that centers action, interaction, and interpretation at the individual and collective levels of analysis. Drawing on basic principles from each, I propose a pragmatist-hermeneutic approach to the sociological study of art music that seeks to illuminate how contemporary art music practice organizes the field of classical music in the twenty-first century American context.