Elliott 's book is a major and brilliant achievement. Never has our field seen anything close to this kind of superb thinking, writing, and scholarship. Elliott sets a new standard, far above the weak mush Reimer has always churned out. Still, Elliott gives full credit to Reimer in Music Matters (chp. 2) for Reimer's earlier work in music education philosophy. Elliott's critics conveniently overlook the fact that Elliott gives this credit, let alone how graciously he does it. Elliott's critics also fail to understand what philosophy is: to do Philosophy is to reflect critically on the efforts of other thinkers, past and present. This is exactly what Elliott does on the way to providing a fine alternative to Reimer's restricted aesthetic view; and Elliott does this brilliantly, with excellent logic and clear explanations. In addition, Elliott never attacks Reimer as a person (whereas Reimer is fond of attacking Elliott personally in his MEJ tirades and elswhere).