My dissertation project focuses on the philosophical problem of the emotional expressivity of pure music, that is, music without contributions from other artistic media such as film, dance, or text.

In a preliminary step, I want to discuss possible relations between music and emotions such as possession, representation, symbolic and iconic expression, evocation, and exemplification. Thereby, I aim at developing a conceptual framework to be used throughout my work.

One main objective of the thesis is to assess and systematize the most important basic theories on musical expressivity as proposed by analytic philosophers of music within the past 30 years. These theories account for some of our most fundamental intuitions about musical expressivity. I will argue that even though some of the most recent approaches (Peacocke, Ridley, and Scruton, among others) are refined versions or combinations of the basic stances, they leave central questions unanswered.

Another main objective is to develop an own integrative theory of musical expressivity. Retaining the intuitions underlying the basic stances, several aspects of our reception of musical works should be posited as collectively constitutive of musical expressivity, namely music's metaphoricity, listeners' imagination, musical symbolization, iconic expression, and evocation.

The integrative theory should also offer three new perspectives on the topic: First of all, I do not consider the relationship between music and emotions as one-directional. Rather, the dissertation should also reflect on whether and how musical expressivity can account for the cultural shaping of human emotions. Secondly, I want to elaborate on non-propositional intentionality in music. Finally, the possibility of similarity between the phenomenology of emotions and contours supervening on musical structures and processes should be discussed.