Has this been bugging anyone else? The fact that both Levinson and Kivy are trying to define a Musical Work such that it represents our use of the term in everyday language, even though it has become evident that what people are attempting to refer to varies from person to person. It seems their argument has been reduced to an argument about what the "general intuition is", and I'm just wondering whether this is futile, as no intuition is being globally accepted. Am I missing something critical? something in their arguments that does not depend on mere intuition? When saying things like "I could have written that work" our intuition seems to go with Kivy's. When saying "that work is unoriginal" we seem to be going with Levinson's. Both seem to be meaningful, though they have contradictory consequences. So something other than a further intuition seems necessary to determine which is the proper use of the term. Has any been given?

Pop Star Puzzler

A question for anyone and everyone who cares to answer: How would Levinson handle Hatsune Miku? Here's a link to an L.A. Times article, with a concert video.

Or other question: How should an ontology of music, that favours relations, handle representations of this sort? Is there really a problem to begin with?

orchestrating platonism

Copies of Kivy's "Orchestrating Platonism" are in the pigeon holes.

paper topic

Here's a topic that uses both what we did last week and what we'll discuss on Tuesday:

A masterpiece by Titian has been gradually fading for nearly 500 years, to the extent that it now appears to be a uniform white rectangle. Upon consulatation with philosophers, computer engineers and quantum physicists, the Gedanken Gallery has decided that it would be inadvisable to restore the painting using traditional means. Instead, it has decided to project on the flat white original painting a digital image of the painting as it originally appeared in 1525. Of course, there were repercussions, especially from proponents of the Traditional Viewership Movement, who declaim that viewership is defined as a relationship between a person and a painting.

The curator of the Gedanken Gallery responds as follows: "As Levinson argues, a musical work is (give or take) a sound structure indicated by a composer in a musico-historical context. Levinson's ontology best captures the thesis that musical works directly bear their artistic properties. We at Gedanken think that paintings should be conceived in the same way, that is, as pictorial structures indicated by a painter in an art-historical context. Therefore, seeing an actual painting is aesthetically irrelevant. A viewer can have a full artistic experience of a painting by looking at a perfect projection in The Gedanken Gallery-- or anywhere else. Paintings are indicated structures, not physical objects."

Discuss. Should paintings be analogized to musical works? What are the problems with conceiving of paintings like musical works? There are a number of different questions that you could pursue here. You'll only have space (5 pages) for one or two.

Due:November 30. You have two papers to do by December 15. Also, if you've started to work on fluxions/flusions or another topic, feel free to continue with what you're doing. If you want to write on this topic later too, that's fine.

some readings

In addition to what's in the Kivy Levinson exchange, we can talk about this when we do creatibility:

Can a Musical Work Be Created?
Caplan, Ben; Matheson, Carl
British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 113-134, April 2004

Against Musical Works As Eternal Types
Author Trivedi, Saam
Source British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 73-82, January 2002

Also, here's something extra on fine individuation:

Fine Individuation
Matheson, Carl; Caplan, Ben
British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 113-137, April 2007

Sorry about all the Caplan&Matheson stuff, but I've probably thought more about fine individuation more than I have anything else in the phil of art.

By the way, the seminar yesterday was a model of how a seminar should be -- a group discussion to which everyone contributed and stayed on point. Thanks.

Kivy's PLATONISM IN MUSIC: A KIND OF DEFENSE

Hi all,

I found an e-copy of Kivy's first response to Levinson.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=bNrqf4yxchEC&lpg=RA2-PA92&ots=eSfi3JTQX3&dq=PLATONISM%20IN%20MUSIC&lr&pg=RA2-PA92#v=onepage&q=PLATONISM%20IN%20MUSIC&f=false

Hope that works. If not, you can find it by searching 'PLATONISM IN MUSIC' in Google Scholar.

Cheers,

Adam

Picasso's "The Actor"

This is probably old news, but may be relevant to our discussion of art restoration:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0125/Visitor-tears-Picasso-s-The-Actor.-How-can-Met-fix-it

This is the main reading for next week. It's e-available.

Title WHAT A MUSICAL WORK IS.

Author Levinson, Jerrold

Source Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77, pp. 5-28, January 1980

This is the second of Kivy's defences of musical platonism. It's e-available:


Title PLATONISM IN MUSIC: ANOTHER KIND OF DEFENSE.

Author Kivy, Peter

Source American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 24, pp. 245-252, July 1987


His first defence and Levinson's follow up to "What a Musical Work Is" are not e-available. I'll try to get them to you. I'll post here when they've arrived in the pigeon-holes.

Levinson: What a Musical Work is, Again. from "Music Art and Metaphysics."



Title PLATONISM IN MUSIC: A KIND OF DEFENSE

Monograph Title THE WORLDS OF ART AND THE WORLD

Author Kivy, Peter

Source "PLATONISM IN MUSIC: A KIND OF DEFENSE" IN "THE WORLDS OF ART AND THE WORLD", MARGOLIS, JOSEPH (ED), 109-130..(1984). THE WORLDS OF ART AND THE WORLD. AMSTERDAM: RODOPI.