Musical Materialism: a Defense in Several Movements

Abstract

An Abstract for “Musical Materialism: A Defense in Several Movements” One view concerning the nature of a musical work, called Musical Platonism, holds that a musical work is an extra-spatiotemporal object, typically called an abstract object, separate from its instances that is eternally existent (there is no point at which it can be said to start existing). Two strong arguments in favor of Musical Platonism over its alternatives are that musical works are analogous to mathematical objects, like the Pythagorean Theorem, and that, if we are going to talk about a musical work, we need a definite referent, which is provided by an abstract object. This paper aims to show that these reasons do not provide a sufficient motivation to accept Musical Platonism. Further, it provides an alternative theory to Musical Platonism, a variation of Musical Materialism, which claims that a musical work is a collection of its physical instantiations, by drawing a distinction between extra-spatiotemporal abstract objects and abstract objects that are idealized copies of concrete objects. It then motivates a method for determining what instances should and should not be considered a part of the abstract object.