Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: In a recent article, Caterina Moruzzi (2018) develops and defends her musical stage theory. This discussion response supposes that Moruzzi's development and defense of her stage theory are satisfactory, but it disputes her case for thinking that it has advantages over key rivals—the traditional type/token theory and musical perdurantism. In Section i, I contrast the three competitors by their differing explanations of musical work multiplicity. In Section ii.a, I dispute Moruzzi's claim that her stage theory's putative ability to explain our direct epistemological access to musical works advantages it over the type/token theory or musical perdurantism. In Section ii.b, I reject Moruzzi's argument for thinking that her musical stage theory better handles score-departing performances than does the normative type/token theory. In Section ii.c, I reject Moruzzi's argument for claiming that her musical stage theory handles improvisations better than the type/token theory. In Section iii, I conclude and hint at an alternative motivation for musical stage theory. The central task in the ontology of music is to explain musical work multiplicity: (M) Distinct occurrences (performances, for example) can each be of the same musical work. Dominant explanations are instantiablist. They say that multiple musical works are instantiable or generic entities—kinds, types, or properties—that can be instantiated by several occurrences (see Wolterstorff 1980; Dodd 2007; Letts 2018). One instantiablist view is the traditional type-token theory, henceforth the “type-token” theory. This theory identifies each multiple musical work with a type, where these are construed as abstracta—entities lacking spatial location—that are instantiated, or “tokened,” by concrete—spatially located—performance-events (Dodd 2007, 42). Concerns about construing musical works as abstracta have led some to seek alternatives to the type-token theory (Caplan and Matheson 2006, 59–60; Tillman 2011, 14). One alternative is performance perdurantism, henceforth “perdurantism.” On this view, each multiple musical work is a mereological fusion of its performances, themselves concrete events made up of momentary stages united by an I-relation appropriate to musical works (Caplan and Matheson 2006, 61–62, 65; 2008, 80; see also Lewis 1976). Perdurantism explains (M) by claiming that a single musical work, qua mereological fusion, has several performances as its proper parts (Caplan and Matheson 2006, 64–65; 2008, 84–85). Moruzzi's performance stage theory, henceforth “stage theory,” is a concretist view fundamentally similar to perdurantism, but it departs in key ways. First, Moruzzi's stages—her I-related concreta—are whole performances, rather than momentary performance-slices.1 Second, stage theory does not identify musical works with fusions of performances. Rather, on stage theory, “the musical work is a stage/performance connected by a privileged relationship [the I-relation for musical works] to other stages/performances” (2018, 342). That is, for Moruzzi, each typical occurrence of a musical work name has some referentially focal performance as its semantic value—the works we ordinarily talk about are performances (345, see also Sider 2001, 191–192).2 This distinctive thesis precludes stage theory from explaining (M) in whole-part terms. Instead, stage theory explains the multiplicity of a work (qua performance) by appeal to the multiplicity of its I-related performances (Moruzzi 2018, 345). Moruzzi presents a compact case for thinking that her view is advantaged over rivals (348–349). This article develops and disputes her arguments. First, Moruzzi argues that only stage theory explains two facts pertinent to our “direct epistemological access of musical works” (342). Over the type-token theory, she claims that stage theory is advantaged because only the latter can explain how musical works are heard directly. According to the type-token theory, musical works are generic abstracta which are involved in causal-perceptual episodes (auditory ones, for example), but only indirectly through their instantiation by particulars, such as their performances (Moruzzi 2018, 348; Dodd 2007, 11–16). Opening gambits aside, Moruzzi does not seriously object to the hypothesis that generic entities are abstracta, which enjoy mediated causal involvement. The latter is a natural option for those who rightly accept that types, kinds, or properties are involved in causal–perceptual relations, but who also accept the popular view that instantiables are abstracta (see, for example, Russell 1912, chapters 9–10; Lewis 1983, and 1986, sect. 1.5). Indeed, Moruzzi herself betrays sanguinity about audible properties contributing, presumably indirectly, to auditory effects (2018, 348).3 Moruzzi's serious objection is that the type-token theory is incompatible with the following purported fact: (DA) Musical works are heard directly in their performances (348). Moruzzi argues for (DA) by proposing that (where true) “common statements” such as, Tonight, I [heard] Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, “seem to imply” that the work is heard directly (348). If there were such a seeming, and it were correct, the type-token theory's indirect perception thesis would be undermined. However, Moruzzi's proposal is merely an assertion, and, I think, an implausible one. The direct/indirect perception distinction is an esoteric metaphysical one, so it is prima facie implausible to propose that “common statements” like (1) (seem to) encode partisan information. Further, Moruzzi's proposal raises awkward questions about why apparently similar statements, like, Tonight, I saw International Klein Blue, can be true, despite expressing an indirect perceptual relation to a property. More plausibly, common statements like (1) and (2) are simply semantically indeterminate on the esoteric distinction—their truth is compatible with the metaphysical indirectness of the perceptual relations expressed. Moruzzi's linguistic argument for (DA), thus stage theory, is unsound. Further, stage theory's metaphysical implications concerning works' auditory-causal contribution seem to disadvantage it relative to the type-token theory. For a referentially focal performance of a work, stage theory identifies the work and the performance, so it identifies “their” effects. Yet, pretheoretically, a single performance and its work diverge in effects. It is a natural thought that each performance of a work includes aurally efficacious properties more determinate than does the work. And, since an effect's causes are proportional to it—they are enough without being too much—for each performance of a work, there will be effects of the work which are not shared by the performance (because the performance is too determinate), and effects of the performance lacking from the work (because the work is not determinate enough). The type-token theorist, however, may propose that musical works are determinable types with profiles better suited to our proportionality intuitions. Thus, the type-token theory may, in fact, be advantaged over stage theory on this score (see Dodd 2007, 55–56; Walters 2013, 169–171). Moruzzi fails to justify (DA), so it is unclear that violating it disadvantages the type-token theory. A fortiori, regarding work's auditory-causal contribution, the latter appears metaphysically advantaged over the former. Next, Moruzzi argues that stage theory is advantaged over perdurantism because only it can explain the truth of: (WA) A listener hears the whole of a musical work by hearing a single (appropriate) performance of it (2018, 348).4 Since, perdurantism identifies each performance with a proper temporal part of a multiple musical work, strictly speaking, perdurantism is incompatible with (WA) (Moruzzi 2018, 348, see also Dodd 2007, 157). Moruzzi thinks that stage theory is advantaged here, since stage theory's identification of each musical work with a single, whole performance allows it to explain (WA). However, stage theory's explanation of (WA) requires an assumption: (WP) If an auditor hears a performance from temporal beginning-to-end, he or she hears the whole of the performance. (WP) sounds intuitive, and, where a performance satisfies the antecedent condition, speakers ordinarily assent to whole-audition claims about that performance. However, read strictly, the truth of (WP) is less than obvious. A whole performance-event typically extends over a large spatial region—a concert hall's interior, for example. Yet, what an auditor has direct auditory contact with—a strong candidate for being what he or she hears the whole of—is only a proper spatial part of the performance-event. Arguably, a typical auditor hears only a proper spatial part of each of a performance's temporal parts, not the whole performance.5 Ostensibly, the conclusion conflicts with typical conditions under which speakers assent to whole-audition claims about performances. However, with other spatially extended entities—houses and sculptures, for example—speakers' assent to whole-perception claims typically occurs when not all spatial parts have been perceived.6 Typically, speakers' assent merely reflects the condition that enough parts required by some salient aim—justifying judgments of financial or aesthetic value, say—are perceived. However, if the stage-theorist concedes that assent to whole-perception claims about performances is governed thus loosely, the perdurantist might make a parallel suggestion about works. Perhaps speakers typically assent to (WA) (and its particular instances) because hearing a spatially proper part of each temporal part of a performance of a work is deemed enough for ordinarily salient aims—the justification of sonic-structural, or aesthetic judgments about the work, for example. Stage theory does seem nearer to explaining (WA) than perdurantism. However, further argument is required to show how, exactly, stage theory is advantaged. Next, Moruzzi argues that her view is advantaged over the type-token theory because it accommodates truths about performances, which contain “departures from the score,” in a way that is “nearer to … actual practices of reception” (2018, 348). On stage theory, for any multiple musical work, w, and any performance-event, e, an utterance of “e is a performance of w” is true just when e stands in musical works' I-relation to other stages (performances) of w. Moruzzi adds to stage theory by identifying musical works' I-relation with her “R-relationship.” This features the following “components”: [R]1. A causal connection that links the works-as-performances together and/or that connects [them] to the relevant act of composition, [R]2. The performers' intentions to play precisely that performance [that is, “produce a performance guided by the causal connection cited in (1)” (344)], [R]3. A sufficient degree of [sonic-structural] similarity between the works-as-performances (344). To this basis, Moruzzi appends the source of her advertised advantage—the R-contextuality thesis. PST's account of the R-relation is contextual: a sound event qualifies as (what we would commonly call) a performance of W if and only if it satisfies a contextually salient collection of R-desiderata. The R-relation between performances or stages may intelligibly depend upon contextual factors, such as the interests of the speaker or the musical background she takes to be appropriate. Thus, a sound event may qualify as an [occurrence] of W notwithstanding its peculiar sonic profile in some settings (undemanding student recitals, or even arrangements and adaptations) but not in others. (344) According to the R-contextuality thesis, the truth-conditions for performance-work assignments are speaker-relative. Along with the features of the performance, the interests and judgments of the speaker uttering the assignment (presumably, on occasion of utterance) are also involved. With score-departing performances, the crucial point is that speaker-attributes qualify the [R3] component so that a performance departing from a work's score-encoded similarity standards may be truly assigned to that work, so long as the speaker's interests and judgments are complementary. Let us introduce “R-stage theory” for the result of supplementing the I-relation-neutral stage theory with Moruzzi's R-contextuality thesis (see Caplan and Matheson 2006, 62). Moruzzi argues that R-stage theory is advantaged over a normative type/token theory. A normative type-token theory associates each work with a condition on correctness of occurrence, a complex condition to be met by the work's properly formed occurrences. It is by satisfying w's correctness condition that a performance counts as a correct occurrence of w. However, on a normative type-token theory, performances lacking some, but not “too many” of the properties required by the complex correctness-condition can count as incorrect occurrences of the work (Dodd 2007, 32). Like stage theory, a normative type-token theory is neutral on which conditions underwrite performance-work assignments, but Moruzzi adds to it a speaker-independent thesis, the S-thesis: each work's correctness condition includes (at least) the content prescribed by its score (2018, 348). The resulting view, call it the “S-type-token theory,” is compatible with works having score-departing performances, but unlike R-stage theory, it implies that score-departures yield performances, which are incorrect by speaker-independent standards. Moruzzi objects to this consequence by claiming that, in actual receptive practice, “univocal [speaker-independent] standards are nowhere to be found. There are no invariantly incorrect performances” (348). If correct, this bold claim would leave the S-type-token theory, and speaker-independent accounts in general, significantly distant from actual receptive practice. However, the claim requires justification, which seems intended by the following remark: “each one of us has a slightly different opinion on how and when a performance is correct, and it is hard to say who is right and who is wrong” (348). On its own, the remark recommends neither the bold claim, nor accepting the R-stage theory as nearer to actual receptive practice than the S-type-token theory. Nevertheless, we might connect the remark to Moruzzi's aims by conceiving of actual receptive practice as a mosaic of individual receivers' actual opinions and by measuring a philosophical theory's nearness to that practice in terms of how many actual opinions the theory can accommodate as true. On that conception, R-stage theory's speaker-relative thesis would appear to deliver it nearer to actual receptive practice than the speaker-independent S-type-token theory.7 If the connecting assumptions are exegetically accurate, one might worry that they merely assert speaker-relativity in methodological guise and, further, one worries that, on the resulting conception of being nearer to actual practice, the measure is too crude to advantage one philosophical theory over another (see Davies 2004, 18–22, and 2009, 162–163; Kania 2008, 435; Letts 2015, 210–216). Nevertheless, even if it is granted that speaker-relative accounts are best, saddling normative type-token theories with the speaker-independent S-thesis is unfair. The type-token view is compatible with a contextualist option: the R-type-token theory. This claims that each multiple musical work is a norm-type, but also adds a contextualist claim. For a given performance-work assignment, the reference for its work-designator, thus which normative condition is involved, depends upon the interests and judgments of the speaker making the assignment. Moruzzi seems to grant the R-type-token theory's adequacy, but objects that it engenders a problematic “proliferation of types” (2018, n18). This response is dubious. First, it seems implicit that normative type-token theory's correctness conditions are abundant independently of the contextual thesis (see Dodd 2007, 60–61). Second, if type-proliferation is prohibitively costly for the norm-type token theory, it is unclear why adding the R-contextuality thesis to stage theory is not. The case for favoring speaker-relative accounts of performance-work assignments is murky, but if they are best, the R-stage theory is not advantaged over normative type/token theories. Finally, in passing, Moruzzi suggests that stage theory is advantaged over the type-token theory because of its stance on improvisations. Moruzzi claims that the type-token theory struggles “to account for improvisation because of its ephemeral nature,” while stage theory can “seamlessly include improvisations in its ontological framework” (2018, 349). And, she thinks that this disadvantages the type-token theory because “improvisations are not lesser musical works than performances based on a set of instructions” (349). Moruzzi does not explicitly exclude multiple improvisations, like Jazz standards, from her discussion. However, her comments above, and the apparent lack of any benefit for stage theory over that domain, suggest that her intended benefit concerns singular improvisations, like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.8 That said, Morruzi never elaborates the type-token theory's purported struggle, nor her stage theory's complementary merit. Further, Moruzzi's Goehr-inspired genealogy of that “struggle” with improvisations invokes hypotheses, which are not strictly included in the type-token theory's categorical hypotheses (349, see also Goehr 1992).9 This leaves exegetical difficulties, but there is one obvious line. Stage theory “seamlessly includes” improvisational performances because it takes both singular improvisations and multiple musical works to be concrete performance-events. Yet, if improvisations are musical works and concrete performance-events, that is incompatible with type-token theory's customary statement: each musical work is a type. This argument, however, lacks force. First, there is rarely a temptation to construe improvisational (indeed any) individual performances as musical works and, in cases where there might be (as with Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert), that may reflect speaker intentions to talk about a nonimprovisational entity, namely, the multiply playable recording of the performance. Second, even if singular improvisations are musical works, the type-token theory, understood charitably, is compatible with that. The type-token theory's customary statement is made against a background presupposition that musico-ontological inquiry targets only multiple works––the entities that generate distinctive multiplicity questions. However, the type-token theorist can drop the presupposition and make her statement explicit without loss of adequacy: each multiple musical work is a type. If the foregoing exegesis is accurate, Moruzzi's consideration of improvisations fails to yield any discernible advantage for stage theory. As interpreted here, Moruzzi's arguments for claiming that stage theory is advantaged over rival views appear unpersuasive. Hopefully, this article helps sharpen focus on alternative motivations for musical stage theory. One influential argument for stage theory about continuants is that it better explains how they undergo intrinsic change than do rival perdurantist and endurantist accounts (Sider 2000 and 2001, 92–98). If musical works undergo intrinsic change (Rohrbaugh 2003, 188–189), a parallel argument favoring musical stage theory over perdurantism and the popular endurantist conception of the type-token theory might provide a more persuasive argument for musical stage theory.10
DOI: 10.1111/jaac.12743
Author: PHILIP LETTS
Institution: University of Manchester
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,500
OpenAlex ID: W3049749971