Abstract

The general forms through which the always‐hidden noumenal manifests itself in detailed phenomena were accurately identified by Plato, and we can retain the name ‘Platonic Forms of Platonic Ideas’. Cognition of these is made possible by works of art, which reveal to us the universal in the particular. Thus, the primary function of art is the expression not of emotion but of cognitive insight into the inner nature of things, expressible in art but unstatable in language. Music alone among the arts does not represent phenomena, and therefore does not unveil Platonic Forms, but is a direct experience of the noumenon. This makes it a super‐art, radically different in kind from the rest, and superior.