Piece for the end of time: In defence of musical ontology

British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (1):65-79 (2008)
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Abstract

Aaron Ridley has recently attacked the study of musical ontology—an apparently fertile area in the philosophy of music. I argue here that Ridley's arguments are unsound. There are genuinely puzzling ontological questions about music, many of which are closely related to questions of musical value. While it is true that musical ontology must be descriptive of pre-existing musical practices and that some debates, such as that over the creatability of musical works, have little consequence for questions of musical value, none of this implies that these debates themselves are without value.

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Andrew Kania
Trinity University

Citations of this work

Performing Works of Music Authentically.Julian Dodd - 2012 - European Journal of Philosophy 23 (3):485-508.
Musical recordings.Andrew Kania - 2009 - Philosophy Compass 4 (1):22-38.
Idealist Origins: 1920s and Before.Martin Davies & Stein Helgeby - 2014 - In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. pp. 15-54.

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References found in this work

What a musical work is.Jerrold Levinson - 1980 - Journal of Philosophy 77 (1):5-28.
The Ontology of Art.Amie L. Thomasson - 2004 - In Peter Kivy (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. pp. 78-92.
Against Musical Ontology.Aaron Ridley - 2003 - Journal of Philosophy 100 (4):203-220.
Profundity in instrumental music.Stephen Davies - 2002 - British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (4):343-356.
The ontological status of the esthetic object.Richard Rudner - 1949 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10 (3):380-388.

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