Musical Ontology, Misc

Nemesio G. C. Puy argues that the "nested types" ontology of works of Western classical music can solve recent disagreements about such works' authentic performance. I raise several objections to his argument.

In the last twenty years, a large number of studies have investigated judgments of the identity of various objects (e.g., persons, material objects, institutions) over time. One influential strand of research has found that identity judgments are shaped by normative considerations. People tend to believe that moral improvement is more compatible with the continuity of identity of a person than moral deterioration, suggesting that persons are taken to be essentially morally good. This asymmetry is often referred to as the “Phineas (...) Gage effect”. However, normativity extends beyond morality. In particular, it is unknown whether changes in aesthetic value have a similar impact on identity judgments. We investigate whether works of art would be analogously seen as essentially aesthetically valuable. We ran four studies (N=1264) to explore whether aesthetic considerations have a similar influence on judgments of the identity of artworks. We presented the participants with stories describing either a painting or a musical work which undergoes changes and becomes either more or less aesthetically valuable. Overall, we found only mixed evidence for the Phineas Gage effect in relation to the aesthetic value of artworks. Other factors, such as moral value, seem to have a bigger impact on judgments of persistence. (shrink)

En esta entrevista, el integrante de RIO, Cucho Galarza, narra cómo conformó este grupo musical en el Perú y la repercusión que tuvo en la conciencia de los ciudadanos. Esto se generaría porque las letras de sus canciones estaban caracterizadas por un mensaje social y político que se vivía en ese entonces. Por ese motivo, el objetivo de este trabajo es que el artista revele qué hizo asequible que la transmisión de su ideal fuera bien recibida por la sociedad, sin (...) que tenga que enfrentarse a la censura o al silencio político. Más allá de ese contenido, debe destacarse que la melodía de sus canciones también hizo posible que la recepción fuera grata. Para finalizar, en esta conversación, se conocerá toda esa trayectoria musical que permitió que la banda RIO lograse un valor en la sociedad peruana que hasta hoy en día se le recuerda y se le escucha. (shrink)

The property theory of musical works is the view that identifies works of music with properties as universals. The purpose of this article is to distinguish different versions of the property theory and argue that none of them can satisfy certain demands we expect from a successful theory of musical works. I conclude that although properties as universals are familiar and useful in other domains, we cannot rely on them to explain the ontological nature of musical works.

Cultural appropriation occurs when an individual from one culture uses another culture's ideas. Often the ideas relate to artifacts, clothes, food, and symbols. Frequently, critics of cultural appropriation claim that it is a type of theft. The critics also claim that it disrespects minorities and also is similar to or involves colonialism. In this paper, we argue that it is neither wrong nor bad to culturally appropriate. It is not wrong because no one owns cultural symbols, not all cultural appropriation (...) involves insult or ridicule, and it is unclear what makes something an instance of cultural appropriation. It is often not bad because a free market in cultural goods frequently maximizes the good. (shrink)

In this short piece, I reflect on my experience in organising and convening a public engagement event after submitting my PhD Thesis. I explain how my initial motivations to put together a seminar series on the philosophy of music were centred on the idea of distributing the finding of my doctoral work. Yet, I conclude showing how the two-way relationship with a small, motivated and enthusiastic audience ended up being the inspiration for further research.

Powerviolence is a subgenre of hardcore music characterized by fast-paced rhythms, chaotic sound, and austere esthetics. Despite its seminal function for extreme music, there has been a notable lack of scholarly exploration into the genre. In this paper I draw on Comparative Philosophy to fill this gap. I argue that the powerviolence music and lyrics are fueled by anger. In Plato, anger serves as a tool for the irascible soul to support rational thinking and oppose injustice. Accordingly, I call for (...) a Platonic interpretation of powerviolence as an incentive for moral reformation in a world rife with violence and immorality. (shrink)

Luis de Lille es conocido por ser uno de los primeros vocalistas e intérpretes de un anime japonés de éxito mundial llamado Dragon Ball. En la entrevista que le realicé, le planteé unas preguntas que estaban relacionadas con el universo musical de esta serie animada. Sus respuestas consolidan un panorama sobre los requisitos indispensables para obtener un buen resultado en las adaptaciones y las interpretaciones que se hacen de las canciones que están en otros idiomas distintos del español. La experiencia (...) profesional que ha tenido en estudios de grabación y como músico perteneciente a bandas y grupos ha servido de base para explicar con pormenores esos componentes esenciales que deben estar incorporados en las canciones, tales como el respeto a la letra, la métrica, la melodía y la intensión. Para finiquitar, el cantante brinda una apreciación en torno a los fenómenos musicales que están surgiendo a partir del confinamiento, tales como la aparición curiosa de los fandubers y la realización de diferentes covers de la serie animada japonesa. (shrink)

Realism about types is the view that types are abstract and repeatable objects. Although type realists seem to agree that types, unlike properties, are objects in their own right, they argue that there is a metaphysically intimate tie between the existence conditions of types and properties. In particular, most type realists believe that types are, in a certain sense, determined by the properties that underlie them. I argue that this is a mistake, especially for those type realists who believe that (...) social and cultural types such as works of music and fiction or words are artifacts. I offer an alternative version of type realism where social and cultural types are dependent objects that should be understood in analogy with concrete artifacts. (shrink)

I suoni e le immagini sembrano appartenere a due forme dell’esperienza profondamente distinte. Due registri sensoriali antitetici cui corrispondono due fenomeni accostabili, ma mai completamente unibili. Eppure si ricorre spesso all’espressione immagine sonora, che cosa si intende precisamente? Esiste un punto in cui i suoni e le immagini si appartengono reciprocamente? Può un’immagine risuonare e un suono essere anche un’immagine? Il testo cerca di rispondere a questi quesiti scavando e intarsiando una concettualizzazione dell’immagine sonora attraverso un dialogo con la semiotica, (...) la fenomenologia e la filosofia dell’arte. Arricchendosi di una riflessione sul rapporto con il pensiero, l’indagine sull’immagine sonora si declina in tre momenti distinti: il suono con un fondamento d’immagine in cui l’elemento fondante è dato dalla presenza dell’immagine nel suono; il suono e l’immagine che si equivalgono orizzontalmente fondendosi l’uno con l’altra; l’immagine con un fondamento sonoro, in cui si rintracciano presenze sonore nell’immagine visiva. (shrink)

The determination thesis is the idea that art-ontological facts are determined by the folk ontological conception of artworks embedded in our artistic practices. From this thesis, descriptivism in the metaontology of art has been often characterized as the view that the task of art-ontology is to describe that folk conception. Amie Thomasson and Andrew Kania provide two paradigmatic accounts within this path. In this paper, I argue that this descriptivist approach is ungrounded because the determination thesis suffers from presupposition failure. (...) It presupposes that, whenever there is a practice of producing and appreciating artworks, there is also a folk ontological conception about those artworks. This presupposition, an implicit premise in Thomasson's and Kania's accounts, will be revealed as false, paying attention to the way artistic practices have evolved. I will conclude that descriptivism should abandon this approach and embrace metaontological realism if it aims to be a plausible view. (shrink)

Musical works change. Bruckner revised his Eighth Symphony. Ella Fitzgerald and many other artists have made it acceptable to sing the jazz standard “All the Things You Are” without its original verse. If we accept that musical works genuinely change in these ways, a puzzle arises: why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony? More generally, why are some individuals in a privileged position when it comes to changing musical works and other artifacts, such as novels, films, and games? I give (...) a view of musical works that helps to answer these questions. Musical works, on this view, are created abstract objects with no parts. The paradigmatic changes that musical works undergo are socially determined normative changes in how they should be performed. Due to contingent social practices, Bruckner, but not I, can change how his symphony should be performed. Were social practices radically different, I would be able to change his symphony. This view extends to abstract artifacts beyond music, including novels, films, words, games, and corporations. (shrink)

This paper is about the dilemma raised against musical ontology by Roger Scruton, in his The Aesthetics of Music: either musical ontology is about certain mind-independent “things” and so music is left out of the picture, or it is about an “intentional object” and so its puzzles are susceptible of an arbitrary answer. I argue the dilemma is merely apparent and deny that musical works can be identified with sound structures, whether or not conceived as abstract entities. The general idea (...) is this: both Platonism and nominalism about musical works are a kind of fetishism: musical works are not “things”, in Danto’s sense of “mere real things”; they rather involve complex relationships between objects, events, and different kinds of functional properties. For this, I draw on Levinson and Howell’s notion of indication, combined with Searle’s approach to institutional reality... with a little twist of my own. (shrink)

This essay foregrounds “covers” of popular recorded songs as well as male and female desire, in addition to Nietzsche’s interest in composition, together with his rhythmic analysis of Ancient Greek as the basis of what he called the “spirit of music” with respect to tragedy. The language of “sonic branding” allows a discussion of what Günther Anders described as the self-creation of mass consumer but also the ghostly time-space of music in the broadcast world. A brief allusion to Rilke complements (...) a similarly brief reference to Jankelevitch’s “ineffable.”. (shrink)

Philosophers of music often appeal to intuition to defend ontological theories of musical works. This practice is worrisome as it is rather unclear just how widely shared are the intuitions that philosophers appeal to. In this paper, I will first offer a brief overview of the debate over the ontology of musical works. I will argue that this debate is driven by a conflict between two seemingly plausible intuitions—the repeatability intuition and the creatability intuition—both of which may be defended on (...) the grounds that they are reflective of our actual musical practices. The problem facing philosophers within this debate is that there is no clear way to determine which of the two conflicting intuitions is more reflective of our musical practices. Finally, I offer discussion of an experimental study that was designed to test participants' intuitions regarding the repeatability of musical works. The evidence presented there suggests that the participants broadly accept the repeatability of musical works, but in a much narrower way than philosophers would likely accept. (shrink)

Music’s original philosophical problem is ontological: what is it? In this paper, I argue that music has a better philosophical beginning; philosophical accounts of music should begin as philosophical accounts of listening to music. What distinguishes listening to music from hearing sound? My aim is to give a philosophical account of music by means of a description of a particular kind of interactive relationship we sometimes have to sound. Music, I shall argue, is not distinguished from sound because it has (...) a special metaphysical status or because of the psychological reactions it produces in us; musical sound is distinctive because we listen to it in a certain way. I explore some of the ontological implications of my account, both for music broadly speaking and for the ontology of musical works. (shrink)

Recently, musical ontologists cared about what types of objects are artworks in a specific music form. Andrew Kania believed that those work type debates initiated a sort of Copernican revolution in his experience of music, but Lee B. Brown and James O. Young both claimed that Kania was wrong: those are useless for our appreciative practice, and at best are useful just for philosophy itself. In this article, I respond to their criticism and defend the practical value of the debates. (...) I argue that the debates may have us shift our attention between different types of art objects, and result in an entirely different experience of appreciation. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have defended a novel, materialist view on the nature of musical works—musical perdurantism. According to this view, musical works are a peculiar kind of concreta, namely perduring mereological sums of performances and/or other concrete entities. One problem facing musical perdurantism stems from the thought that if this view is correct, then virtually no musical work can exist in a continuous, non-intermittent fashion. The aim of this paper is to expound this problem and show that it (...) cannot be plausibly solved by a musical perdurantist. (shrink)

Gracyk, Kania, and Davies all agree that the rock tradition is distinctive for the central place that it gives to the appreciation of recorded tracks. But we should not be led by those arguments to conclude that the central position of the recorded track makes such appreciation the exclusive interest in rock. I argue that both songwriting and live performance are also central to the rock tradition by showing that the practice of recording tracks admits of a diversity of goals (...) and aims that is not exhausted by a concern for track construction. (shrink)

I explain a tension between musical creationism (the view that musical works are abstract artifacts) and the view that there is no vague existence. I then suggest ways to reconcile these views. My central conclusion is that, although some versions of musical creationism imply vague existence, others do not. I discuss versions of musical creationism held by Jerrold Levinson, Simon Evnine, and Kit Fine. I also present two new versions. I close by considering whether the tension is merely an instance (...) of a general problem raised by artifacts, both abstract and concrete. I argue that on at least one defensible account of music the tension is especially problematic for abstracta. I focus on musical works, but much of the paper straightforwardly applies to other kinds of abstract artifacts. (shrink)

This book provides a unique approach to some of philosophy’s fundamental issues. It points to music as a model for exploring such questions as, “What does it mean to value?” This is not a musical study, per se, but a philosophical text that uses music as a vehicle for investigating these and other metaphysical, axiological, and aesthetic matters.

On offer here is a tradition-neutral way of understanding the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy of music. The distinction is drawn in terms of methodology, rather than content, by identifying contrasting methodological tendencies of each tradition—initial maneuvers that frame an investigation, which are related to one another insofar as they involve, or do not involve, two kinds of methodological detachment. These maneuvers are extracted through a consideration of contrasting pairs of examples. The pairs consist of an analytic and a (...) continental account of a core issue in the philosophy of music. The issues considered are musical experience, musical ontology, and the relationship between music and the emotions. The philosophers considered are Roger Scruton and Pierre Bourdieu, Jerrold Levinson and Lydia Goehr, Peter Kivy, and Andrew Bowie. (shrink)

Istanbul is home to a multimillion dollar transnational music industry, which every year produces thousands of digital music recordings, including widely distributed film and television show soundtracks. Today, this centralized industry is responding to a growing global demand for Turkish, Kurdish, and other Anatolian ethnic language productions, and every year, many of its top-selling records incorporate elaborately orchestrated arrangements of rural folksongs. What accounts for the continuing demand for traditional music in local and diasporic markets? How is tradition produced in (...) twenty-first century digital recording studios, and is there a "digital aesthetics" to contemporary recordings of traditional music? -/- In Digital Tradition: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul's Recording Studio Culture, author Eliot Bates answers these questions and more with a case study into the contemporary practices of recording traditional music in Istanbul. Bates provides an ethnography of Turkish recording studios, of arrangers and engineers, studio musicianship and digital audio workstation kinesthetics. Digital Traditions investigates the moments when tradition is arranged, and how arrangement is simultaneously a set of technological capabilities, limitations and choices: a form of musical practice that desocializes the ensemble and generates an extended network of social relations, resulting in aesthetic art objects that come to be associated with a range of affective and symbolic meanings. Rich with visual analysis and drawing on Science & Technology Studies theories and methods, Digital Traditions sets a new standard for the study of recorded music. Scholars and general readers of ethnomusicology, Middle Eastern studies, folklore and science and technology studies are sure to find Digital Traditions an essential addition to their library. (shrink)

Some artworks—works of music, theatre, dance, and the like—are works for performance. Some works for performance are, I contend, unperformable. Some such works are unperformable by beings like us; others are unperformable given our laws of nature; still others are unperformable given considerations of basic logic. I offer examples of works for performance—focusing, in particular, on works of music—that would fit into each of these categories, and go on to defend the claim that such ‘works’ really are genuine works, musical (...) works and works for performance. I then argue that the very possibility of such works is ontologically significant. In particular, the possibility of these works raises serious problems for type-theoretic accounts of the ontology of music as well as certain mereological or constitution-based accounts. (shrink)

Several prominent contemporary philosophers, including Jürgen Habermas, John Caputo, and Robert Bernasconi, have at times painted a somewhat negative picture of Gadamer as not only an uncritical traditionalist, but also as one whose philosophical project fails to appreciate difference. Against such claims, I argue that Gadamer’s reflections on art exhibit a genuine appreciation for alterity not unrelated to his hermeneutical approach to the other. Thus, by bringing Gadamer’s reflections on our experience of art into conversation with key aspects of his (...) philosophical hermeneutics, we are able to better assess the viability of Gadamer’s contributions to contemporary discussions of difference and alterity. -/- Sections two through six focus on key concepts in Gadamer’s account of art’s dynamic ontology and our experience of art. Such concepts include the play structure of art, hermeneutic identity, tarrying with a work, and contemporaneity. The opening sections provide not only a discussion of these central themes, but they also (1) draw attention to the various ways in which difference and otherness are integral to Gadamer’s account, and (2) utilize relevant musical examples that prepare the reader for a more focused discussion of a Gadamerian approach to free jazz in section seven. By highlighting how Gadamer’s understanding of art possesses a dialogical play structure, is characterized by identity and difference, requires actively engaged spectators and auditors, and is amenable to what many criticize as an unintelligible musical expression, viz. free jazz, Gadamer’s project is shown as other-affirming and open to ambiguity and dynamism. That is, the essential structures and concepts characterizing Gadamer’s reflections on art are likewise central to his overall hermeneutical project, and hence are not rightly described as un-attuned to difference or other-negating. Rather, Gadamer’s philosophical project upholds difference, since it requires a dialogical interplay between self and other that creates the possibility for a transformative experience. (shrink)

Accounts of the ontology of musical works seek to uncover what metaphysically speaking a musical work is and how we should identify instances of musical works. In this article, I examine the curious case of the mash-up and seek to address two questions: are mash-ups musical works in their own right and what is the relationship between the mash-up and its source materials? As mash-ups are part of the broader tradition of rock, I situate this discussion within an ontology of (...) rock as defended by Theodore Gracyk and Stephen Davies and offer some interpretation as to what their positions might be in regard to mash-ups. Finally, I argue that the account of mash-ups that best makes sense of our evaluative practices would hold that they are emergent musical works that are distinct in their own right and yet also happen to be cases of musical works that instantiate parts of other musical works. (shrink)

In this paper I offer critical attention to the notion of atmosphere in relation to music. By exploring the concept through the case study of the Closed Brethren worship services, I argue that atmosphere may provide analytical tools to explore the ineffable in ecclesial practices. Music, just as atmosphere, commonly occupies a realm of ineffability and undermines notions such as inside and outside, subject and object. For this reason I present music as a means of knowing the atmosphere. The first (...) part of this paper points to the limits of an understanding of atmosphere as a constellation of things, as proposed by Gernot Böhme. In contrast to this, Hermann Schmitz conceptualises atmosphere as half-thing which suggests movement. Drawing on this, I propose to methodologically approach atmospheres as movements. Consequently, in the second part of this paper I closely analyse two motions as they cohere in Closed Brethren worship services: first, becoming (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement on the level of the individual worshiper; secondly, territorialisation (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement of the atmosphere towards its solidification. Here music as atmosphere is not a system of moral signification but a generative power affording intimate processes of divine encounter, whilst producing affective denominational difference. (shrink)

The ontology of musical works often sets the boundaries within which evaluation of musical works and performances takes place. Questions of ontology are therefore often taken to be prior to and apart from the evaluative questions considered by either performers as they present works to audiences or an audience’s critical reflection on a performance. In this paper I argue that, while the ontology of musical works may well set the boundaries of legitimate evaluation, ontological questions should not be considered as (...) prior to or apart from critical evaluation. Rather, ontological claims are a type of critical evaluation made within musical practices. I argue that philosophers of music might learn from the debate in political philosophy about the difficulty of setting the limits of public reason in a way that remains open to a plurality of legitimate evaluative perspectives. Just as pre-political or metaphysical identification of the boundaries of public reason fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary democratic politics, so too does a metaphysical identification of the boundaries of legitimate evaluation of musical works and performances fail to accommodate the fact of pluralism in contemporary musical practices. I apply John Rawls’s formulation of political liberalism, arguing that musical ontology should be critical, not metaphysical. (shrink)

Many philosophers of music, especially within the analytic tradition, are essentialists with respect to musical experience. That is, they view their goal as that of isolating the essential set of features constitutive of the experience of music, qua music. Toward this end, they eliminate every element that would appear to be unnecessary for one to experience music as such. In doing so, they limit their analysis to the experience of a silent, motionless individual who listens with rapt attention to the (...) sounds produced by either musicians a on stage, a stereo, or a portable device. This approach is illustrated in recent work by Nick Zangwill. Drawing on essentialist assumptions, Zangwill concludes that properly musical experience is effectively disembodied and radically private. While this seems plausible when we consider the essentialists’ paradigm case, Zangwill’s conclusion seems odd once we consider the wide variety of ways that people experience music. One’s body and social situation seem ineluctably enmeshed within the experience of, e.g., hot jazz played in a nightclub, where listeners bob their heads and dance to the music, cheer on the musicians, and socialize with their fellow concertgoers. The question this paper aims to answer is: should we consider this and similar experiences of music properly “musical”? I maintain that we should. Far from the world of pure music that Zangwill and others relegate properly musical experience, I conclude that our musical experiences are fully enmeshed within the somatic, affective, and interpersonal dimensions of human life. (shrink)

Aaron Ridley posed the question of whether results in the ontology of musical works would have implications for judgements about the interpretation, meaning or aesthetic value of musical works and performances. His arguments for the conclusion that the ontology of musical works have no aesthetic consequences are unsuccessful, but he is right in thinking (in opposition to Andrew Kania and others) that ontological judgements have no aesthetic consequences. The key to demonstrating this conclusion is the recognition that ontological judgments are (...) a priori and aesthetic judgments are empirical. A priori judgements have no empirical consequences. Neither fundamental ontology of music nor higher- order ontological reflections have any aesthetic consequences. (shrink)

Casati, Di Bona and Dokic have recently argued that sounds are identical to their event sources. In this paper, I review the arguments they have offered in support of this view, show that their claims fail to defend it in a completely persuasive and conclusive fashion, and present some new questions for their thesis.

Este artigo aborda as principais teorias sobre a natureza metafísica das obras de arte, cobrindo as propostas eliminativistas, monistas e pluralistas. Entre estas últimas, é dado destaque ao trabalho sobre a ontologia das artes performativas, e em particular, da música. Termina-se com uma referência à recente viragem da discussão para o campo da meta-ontologia e a polémica sobre a plausibilidade do revisionismo ontológico no caso de artefactos ou objectos sociais.

Art and Abstract Objects presents a lively philosophical exchange between the philosophy of art and the core areas of philosophy. The standard way of thinking about non-repeatable (single-instance) artworks such as paintings, drawings, and non-cast sculpture is that they are concrete (i.e., material, causally efficacious, located in space and time). Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is currently located in Paris. Richard Serra's Tilted Arc is 73 tonnes of solid steel. Johannes Vermeer's The Concert was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. Michaelangelo's (...) David was attacked with a hammer in 1991. By contrast, the standard way of thinking about repeatable (multiple-instance) artworks such as novels, poems, plays, operas, films, symphonies is that they must be abstract (i.e., immaterial, causally inert, outside space-time): consider the current location of Melville's Moby Dick, the weight of Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium", or how one might go about stealing Puccini's La Boheme or vandalizing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9. Although novels, poems, and symphonies may appear radically unlike stock abstract objects such as numbers, sets, and propositions, most philosophers of art think that for the basic intuitions, practices, and conventions surrounding such works to be preserved, repeatable artworks must be abstracta. -/- This volume examines how philosophical enquiry into art might itself productively inform or be productively informed by enquiry into abstracta taking place within not just metaphysics but also the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind and language. While the contributors chiefly focus on the relationship between philosophy of art and contemporary metaphysics with respect to the overlap issue of abstracta, they provide a methodological blueprint from which scholars working both within and beyond philosophy of art can begin building responsible, mutually informative, and productive relationships between their respective fields. (shrink)

Although few philosophers agree about what it is for something to be art, most, if not all, agree on one thing: art must be in some sense intention dependent. Art and Art-Attempts is about what follows from taking intention dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for something's being art. Christy Mag Uidhir argues that from the assumption that art must be the product of intentional action, along with basic action-theoretic account of attempts (goal-oriented intention-directed activity), follows a host of (...) sweeping implications for philosophical enquiry into the nature of art and its principal relata such as authorship, art forms, and art ontology: e.g., 1) an informative distinction between art, non-art, and failed-art that any viable theory of art must capture, 2) a far more productive minimal framework for authorship not only capable of systematically addressing issues of collective authorship appropriation, etc. but also one according to which artists just are authors, 3) a coherent and structurally precise account of art forms based upon the relation between artists, artworks, and the sortal properties thereof, and 4) a unified and far less metaphysically suspect ontology of art according to which if there are such things as artworks, then artworks must be concrete things. Ultimately, Mag Uidhir aims neither to propose nor to defend any particular, precise answer to the question "What is art?" Instead, he shows the ways in which taking intention-dependence seriously as a substantive necessary condition for being art can be profoundly revelatory, and perhaps even radically revisionary, as to the scope and limits of what any particular, precise answer to such a question could viably be. -/- **Winner of The American Society for Aesthetics Outstanding Monograph Award 2013**. (shrink)

I consider the field of aesthetics to be at its most productive and engaging when adopting a broadly philosophically informative approach to its core issues (e.g., shaping and testing putative art theoretic commitments against the relevant standard models employed in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind) and to be at its most impotent and bewildering when cultivating a philosophically insular character (e.g., selecting interpretative, ontological, or conceptual models solely for fit with pre-fixed art theoretic commitments). For example, when (...) philosophical aesthetics tends toward insularity, we shouldn’t be surprised to find standard art-ontological categories incongruous with those standardly employed in contemporary metaphysics. Of course, when contemporary metaphysics tends to ignore aesthetic and art theoretic concerns, perhaps we likewise shouldn’t be surprised to find the climate of contemporary metaphysics inhospitable for a theory of art. While this may seem to suggest at least a prima facie tension between our basic art theoretic commitments considered from within philosophical aesthetics and our standard ontological commitments considered from without, I think any perceived tension or antagonism largely due to metaphysicians and aestheticians (at least implicitly) assuming there to be but two available methodological positions with respect to the relationship between contemporary metaphysics and philosophical aesthetics (in the relevant overlap areas). I call these two opposing views the Deference View and the Independence View. I argue that either view looks to lead to what I call the Paradox of Standards. (shrink)

Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation that are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, (...) but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the very possibility of transformative and referential covers, we argue that a cover is characterized by relation to a canonical track rather than merely by being a new instance of a song that had been recorded previously. (shrink)

While ethnomusicologists often write about musical instruments and engage with social theories, these two predilections are typically distinct, and rarely are instruments theorized let alone considered in social terms. Drawing on recent work in Science and Technology Studies, I argue for a study of the social where musical objects (including instruments) and people are actors within patterned heterogeneous networks. I begin with literary examples of instruments framed as having agency, then move to the treatment of instrument-agency within organology. As an (...) exemplar for this methodology, I consider the social life of the saz, an ubiquitous lute from Turkey. (shrink)

We compare William Henry Fox Talbot’s 1835 photographic negative 'Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura) August 1835' with Richard Beaudoin’s 2009 solo piano work 'Étude d’un Prélude VII -- Latticed Window'. We claim that the score of Beaudoin’s work is a musical photograph of a performance of another musical work, and support the claim by describing their respective photographic and compositional processes, emphasizing the uniqueness of this score in being mechanically counterfactually dependent on its target (a recording of a Chopin (...) prelude performed by Martha Argerich). We then compare Beaudoin’s score with other possible musical photographs, including musical recordings, sonic spectrographs, ordinary musical transcriptions, and typical musical scores. Finally, we consider an argument based on the transparency of photographs. (shrink)

This paper explores the ontology of musical improvisation (MI). MI, as process in which creative and performing activities are one and the same generative occurrence, is contrasted with the most widespread conceptual resource used in inquiries about music ontology of the Western tradition: the type/token duality (TtD). TtD, which is used for explaining the relationship between musical works (MWs) and performances, does not fit for MI. Nonetheless MI can be ontologically related to MWs. A MW can ensue from MI and (...) MI can be required for performing a MW faithfully. As performance on a MW, MI can offer versions of a MW, manifest a MW, and, especially, use it as one of its ‘ingredients’. Recordings of MI present special challenges and an unexpected ontological revival. (shrink)

In this article I argue against the arbitrariness of the concept of music and for an essentialist and naturalist framework, according to which music is a cross-cultural human phenomenon, defined by relational properties held together by uniform features of human nature. Building on Dickie’s classification of theories of art in natural kind theories and cultural-kind theories, I argue for an enhanced natural-kind theory (which explains the institutional element), and use some developments in social ontology to show the inadequacy of an (...) institutionalist approach to art and music. (shrink)

Some hold that musical works are fusions of, or coincide with, their performances. But if performances contain wrong notes, won't works inherit that property? We say ‘no’.

In a recent pair of articles, Aaron Ridley and Andrew Kania have debated the merits of the study of musical ontology. Ridley contends that the study of musical ontology is orthogonal to more pressing concerns over the value of music. Kania rejects this, arguing that a theory of the value of music must begin with an understanding of the ontology of music. In this essay, I will argue that, despite Kania's rejections, Ridley's criticism exposes a false methodological assumption that needs (...) to be addressed—a poorly understood adherence to the priority of ontology, which is the belief that the resolution of ontological disputes must precede our understanding of the evaluation of musical performances. I will argue that there is a central claim at the heart of Ridley's criticisms that must be appreciated—that standard accounts of the ontology of music make unwarranted assumptions about the rigidity of the identification of musical performances—and yet Kania is right to claim that the resolution of some ontological questions will play some role in our evaluation of musical performances. I will argue that part of the disagreement between Ridley and Kania can be resolved by accepting a greatly weakened version of the priority of ontology. (shrink)

The ontological status of theories themselves has recently re-emerged as a live topic in the philosophy of science. We consider whether a recent approach within the philosophy of art can shed some light on this issue. For many years philosophers of aesthetics have debated a paradox in the (meta)ontology of musical works (e.g. Levinson [1980]). Taken individually, there are good reasons to accept each of the following three propositions: (i) musical works are created; (ii) musical works are abstract objects; (iii) (...) abstract objects cannot be created. However it seems clear that, if one wants to avoid inconsistency, one cannot commit to all three. Following up recent developments courtesy of Cameron ([2008a]), we consider how one might respond to the corresponding set of propositions in the (meta)ontology of scientific theories. 1 Introduction2 Setting up the Problem3 What to Reject? 3.1 Scientific theories are not created? 3.2 Scientific theories are not abstract objects? 3.3 Abstract objects can be created?4 A Fourth Way: Truth-maker Theory5 Objections and Replies 5.1 What are the truth-makers? 5.2 Objections from World 3 5.3 Fictionalism 5.4 Concrete/abstract6 Conclusion. (shrink)

_The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music_ is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key topics, subjects, thinkers and debates in philosophy and music. Over fifty entries by an international team of contributors are organised into six clear sections: general issues emotion history figures kinds of music music, philosophy and related disciplines _The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music_ is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, music and musicology.

This is a long-awaited reissue of Jerrold Levinson's 1990 book which gathers together the writings that made him a leading figure in contemporary aesthetics. These highly influential essays are essential reading for debates on the definition of art, the ontology of art, emotional response to art, expression in art, and the nature of art forms.

Simplifying somewhat, sonicists believe that works of music are individuated purely in terms of how they sound. For them, exact sound-alikes are identical. Stephen Davies, in his ‘Musical Works and Orchestral Colour’ ( BJA 48 (2008), pp. 363–375) took me to task for defending a version of sonicism. In this paper I seek to explain why Davies's objections miss their mark. In the course of the discussion, I make some methodological remarks about the ontology of music.