Contre le pragmatisme en ontologie de la musique

• Main Author: Roger Pouivet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Firenze University Press 2014-02-01
• Series: Aisthesis
• Subjects: musical ontology; pragmatism; realism; existence
• Online Access: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/814

Pragmatism in the philosophy of music claims that “musical work” does not mean a kind of things in the world. For the Pragmatist, the title of a musical work does not designate a single entity in the world. Therefore, the possibility of identifying a musical work and to understand its essential characteristics is related to a social practice, largely conventional. But the Pragmatist is wrong. Artworks are ontologically dependant on what we believe, our practices; but is does not imply that artworks do not exist as such in the inventory of the world. It is precisely their (quasi-) nature to depend on us. But to have a depending-existence, it is nonetheless really to exist.