Abstract

Ontological reflection on the arts serves several aims. One purpose is to provide some general criteria of identity of the work: to discover the features or elements which are constitutive of the work. Related to this, the aim of an ontology is to determine, if possible, the criteria of authenticity: under what conditions and with which features can an art work, literary work, or work in the performing arts be said to be the same work? Each arena of artistic activity, be it within the visual arts or the performing arts has its own set of ontological peculiarities. The problem of authenticity becomes particularly problematic for the philosophy of music. ;Recent work in the philosophy of music finds itself between a rock and a "soft" place. Since a physicalist reduction of musical works has appeared ineluctably inadequate to the task of explaining how musical works can be meaningfully repeated, philosophers of music have moved in the direction of the transcendent: "Musical Platonism." The performance and the objective evaluation of those performances of the musical work is insured by the transcendent existence of the pure ideal of the musical work. ;The thesis of Musical Investigations is concerned to defeat every theoretical attempt to solve the riddles of musical ontology which abstracts itself from or ignores performance and the social-historical conditions which make performance possible. The remaining middle ground, between the two forms of reductionism, calls for constructing a pragmatic, performance-oriented ontology of music. Through the investigation of the semiotics of musical notation, the nature of social practices, and the ethical-education of musicians, I conclude that a musical work is a "sonic-formula within the musical performance-practices of our time." Its nature cannot be understood independently from the world of performance. There can be no final theoretical criterion of authenticity. This view accounts for the undeniable historicity of musical values and practices, while at the same time it provides a model for the explanation of convergence within the world of musical performance