Abstract

A fundamental concept of a philosophy of music is that of sound. Any investigation of this concept has to be ontologically as well as epistemically adequate. The main proposition of the article is that sounds can only be understood ontologically if we take into consideration their main characteristic of being strictly shapeless and lacking content, an insight that we can learn from Kant. In contradiction to Kant, sounds can be epistemologically characterized as objects that can only be re-presented if the hearer co-presents their temporal extension. The argument is developed through a discussion of the work of P. F. Strawson, G. Evans, R. Scruton, and H. Riemann