Why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony?
Philosophical Studies 177 (3):805-824 (2020)
Abstract
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.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s11098-018-1207-3
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Citations of this work
The Role of Teleological Thinking in Judgments of Persistence of Musical Works.Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė & Vilius Dranseika - 2022 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (1):42-57.
Intuitions in the Ontology of Musical Works.Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (2):455-474.
Establishments as Material rather than Immaterial Objects.Frank A. Hindriks - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (4):835-840.
Establishments as Material rather than Immaterial Objects.Frank A. Hindriks - forthcoming - Tandf: Australasian Journal of Philosophy:1-6.
References found in this work
Universals and Scientific Realism: A theory of universals.David Malet Armstrong - 1978 - Cambridge University Press.
Making Objects and Events: A Hylomorphic Theory of Artifacts, Actions, and Organisms.Simon Evnine - 2016 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK.