Defending 'Defending Musical Perdurantism'

Caplan, Ben; Matheson, Carl

doi:10.1093/aesthj/aym037

Cited by 27 publications

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“…According to musical perdurantism, musical works are fusions of temporal parts where these temporal parts are performances. When listening to a performance, then, we are listening only to a part of the work: it is impossible to hear works‐qua‐fusions in their entirety; only their temporal parts are accessible (Caplan and Matheson , 61–63) . Nominalists and action theorists meet similar issues: neither a class of performances nor the composer's actions can typically be objects of acquaintance on the part of the audience (see Goodman and D. Davies ).…”

Section: Advantages Of Musical Stage Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nominalists, on the other hand, take it to be a class of performances. For both of these positions just as for type‐token theories, then, a nonliteral reading of the sentence above is needed, as in the assumption of an implicit “performance of” caveat (see Caplan and Matheson , 59–69; Goodman ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For an overview of the main views on this topic, see Kivy (), Dodd (), Levinson (), and Caplan and Matheson ().…”

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confidence: 99%

“…But I do not think that musical perdurantists can be in the position for doing this. First, the last version of musical perdurantism (see Caplan and Matheson ) includes within the fusion, that is, the work, only performances (while in the first version () it also included the act of composition). The authors do not account for the reason of the exclusion and it never mentions the relevance of the act of composition.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In addition, Dodd's view on types raises independent concerns as pointed out by Caplan and Matheson (, 126–128; see Caplan and Matheson for objections against Dodd's version of deferred ostension).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Every Performance Is a Stage: Musical Stage Theory as a Novel Account for the Ontology of Musical Works

Moruzzi

2018

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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This article defends Musical Stage Theory as a novel account of the ontology of musical works. Its main claim is that a musical work is a performance. The significance of this argument is twofold. First, it demonstrates the availability of an alternative, and ontologically tenable, view to well‐established positions in the current debate on musical metaphysics. Second, it shows how the revisionary approach of Musical Stage Theory actually provides a better account of the ontological status of musical works.

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Section: Advantages Of Musical Stage Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For an overview of the main views on this topic, see Kivy (), Dodd (), Levinson (), and Caplan and Matheson ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Every Performance Is a Stage: Musical Stage Theory as a Novel Account for the Ontology of Musical Works

Moruzzi

2018

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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Musical Works as Structural Universals

Fisher

2021

Erkenn

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In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the best version of Musical Aristotelianism identifies musical works with structural universals. I first motivate the view by outlining its explanatory benefits. I then argue that Musical Aristotelianism is preferable to Musical Platonism and present a novel account of musical works as structural universals by developing D.M. Armstrong's theory of structural universals. I discuss the consequences of Musical Aristotelianism with respect to on-going issues in debates about musical works and defend the view against an influential objection, concluding that Musical Aristotelianism is a genuine competitor in debates about the nature of musical works. a work of music is a token of some type. The main disagreement among Musical Platonists concerns the nature of types -whether musical works are eternal types (Dodd 2000) or creatable indicated types (Howell 2002;Trivedi 2002;Walters 2013). Let us call the former view extreme Musical Platonism and the latter moderate Musical Platonism.Musical Platonism has a broader meaning than this type-theoretic interpretation. A Musical Platonist could identify musical works with a Platonic entity that is not a type. They might say a musical work is a Platonic universal. On this Platonic variant, musical works are not types. The relevant contrast, then, between Musical Platonism and Musical Aristotelianism is that musical works, according to the Platonist, are transcendental in the sense that an entity lacks spatial location, is eternal, acausal, or immutable, etc, whereas the Aristotelian says that musical works are immanent. 3 The Musical nominalist provides an account of musical works without positing Platonic types or universals (whether transcendental or immanent). Traditionally, Musical nominalism was understood as the view that musical works are classes of performances (in the same way the nominalist more generally says a property is a class of individuals). More recently, Musical nominalism has taken on a more materialist flavour, without any reference to classes. Ben Caplan and Carl Matheson (2004) have suggested that musical works are mereological fusions of performances and (perhaps) the score, score-copies, recordings, and the compositional activity of the composer; they have styled this theory as a form of perdurantism (Caplan & Matheson 2006). 4 Chris Tillman (2011) has argued that musical works are multiply locatable concrete objects such that a musical work is wholly located at its manifestations; the work coincides with its manifestations. The relevant cont...

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The vagueness argument against abstract artifacts

Korman

2013

Philos Stud

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Creationism is the thesis there are abstract artifacts, that is, objects that have no spatial location and that are deliberately brought into existence as a result of creative acts. One plausible example of an abstract artifact is a musical work. Musical works would seem to lack any spatial location and yet are evidently created by their composers. Other plausible examples include stories and fictional characters, languages and words, concepts, games, recipes, roles, software, electronic documents, and data sets. 1 There is certainly room for disagreement in each of these cases. But it is extremely plausible that at least some of these are abstract artifacts, neither eternal nor concrete.Universalism is the thesis that composition is unrestricted: for every plurality of material objects, there is a material object that is the sum of those objects. One might naturally assume that the question of whether composition is unrestricted is entirely independent from the question of whether stories and symphonies are abstract artifacts. But this would be a mistake. A minor variant of an influential and widely discussed argument for universalism-the vagueness argument-threatens to undermine creationism. I will show that these arguments stand or fall together. Those who accept universalism on the basis of the vagueness argument cannot accept creationism.

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Defending 'Defending Musical Perdurantism'

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

Every Performance Is a Stage: Musical Stage Theory as a Novel Account for the Ontology of Musical Works

Every Performance Is a Stage: Musical Stage Theory as a Novel Account for the Ontology of Musical Works

Musical Works as Structural Universals

The vagueness argument against abstract artifacts

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