Fictionalism about musical works

Killin, Anton

doi:10.1080/00455091.2017.1357993

Can. J. of Philosophy

2018

DOI: 10.1080/00455091.2017.1357993

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Fictionalism about musical works

Anton Killin

Abstract: The debate concerning the ontological status of musical works is perhaps the most animated debate in contemporary analytic philosophy of music. In my view, progress requires a piecemeal approach. So in this article I hone in on one particular musical work concept – that of the classical Western art musical work; that is, the work concept that regulates classical art-musical practice. I defend a fictionalist analysis – a strategy recently suggested by Andrew Kania as potentially fruitful – and I develop a versi… Show more

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Cited by 7 publications

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“…By contrast, Musical Aristotelianism can be extended to other art forms. My focus on realist theories is also in tension with fictionalism about musical works(Kania 2012;Killin 2018). I hold the realist sentiment that it is too costly to say that our talk about musical works is merely fictional.…”

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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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Musical Works as Structural Universals

Fisher

2021

Erkenn

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The Polysemy Theory of Sound

Killin

2020

Erkenn

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Musical works are mind-independent artifacts

Mikalonytė

2023

Synthese

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Realism about musical works is often tied to some type of Platonism. Nominalism, which posits that musical works exist and that they are concrete objects, goes with ontological realism much less often than Platonism: there is a long tradition which holds human-created objects (artifacts) to be mind-dependent. Musical Platonism leads to the well-known paradox of the impossibility of creating abstract objects, and so it has been suggested that only some form of nominalism becoming dominant in the ontology of art could cause a great change in the field and open up new possibilities. This paper aims to develop a new metaontological view starting from the widely accepted claim that musical works are created. It contends that musical works must be concrete and created objects of some sort, but, nevertheless, they are mind-independent, and we should take the revisionary methodological stance. Although musical works are artifacts, what people think about them does not determine what musical works are. Musical works are similar to natural objects in the following sense: semantic externalism applies to the term ‘musical work’ because, firstly, they possess a shared nature, and, secondly, we can be mistaken about what they are.

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Fictionalism about musical works

Cited by 7 publications

References 60 publications

Musical Works as Structural Universals

Musical Works as Structural Universals

The Polysemy Theory of Sound

Musical works are mind-independent artifacts

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