The Ontology of Musical Networks
Brian Kane · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024
Abstract This chapter contrasts the network-based theory of musical works with some major thinkers in Anglophone philosophy of music. It reviews the nominalism of Nelson Goodman and contrasts it with the realism of Jerrold Levinson, Peter Kivy, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. While there are significant differences between these philosophical realists, all three share a framework that posits musical works as real things, specified and individuated by their essential properties, and impervious to change. In contrast, this chapter argues that jazz standards are musical works that have no essential properties, that emerge from a network of performances, and that are not impervious to change over time. The work of Bruno Latour and Annemarie Mol is considered as a model for understanding how objects and facts can be socially constructed and be involved in “ontological politics.” The chapter ends by developing some of the advantages of the network-based theory of musical works.