Many months ago I presented an objection to a view called musical perdurantism. Now I want to discuss a different objection.
First a refresher. Ben Caplan and Carl Matheson define musical perdurantism as follows.
According to musical perdurantism, a musical work is a fusion of performances. On this view, works persist by perduring: that is, they exist at different times by having different temporal parts – for example, different performances – at those times.
Caplan and Matheson defend musical perdurantism from Julian Dodd’s objection that ‘musical perdurantism entails the absurd thesis that works of music cannot be heard in toto’ (Caplan and Matheson 2008, 80)
Dodd assumes that in order to perceive all of a whole at some time all of its parts must exist at that time. This is a problem for musical perdurantism because all of the performances of Clair de Lune, for example, do not exist whenver you listen to it.
Caplan and Matheson pin the following princple on Dodd.
(1P) For any x, y, z, and t, if x perceives all of y at t and z is a part of y, then z exists at t.
Caplan and Matheson argue that (1P) is false and that it is in fact possible to perceive something that doesn’t exist. They use a dead star as an example. iIt is possible to perceive stars even though the stars parts may not exist – because the star ceased to exist by the time the light reached Earth.
While I have my doubts about this response, I think we can set them aside. The spirit of Dodd’s argument can be preserved by appeal to a different principle. All Dodd needs is that to perceive all of something one must perceive all of that thing’s parts.
(2P) For any x, y, z, and t, if x perceives all of y at t and z is a part of y, then x perceives z at t.
I think that I’ve listened to Clair de Lune in its entirety. I only need (2P) for that to come out true. I think that best captures the spirit of Dodd’s objection.
B. Caplan, C. Matheson (2008). Defending ‘Defending Musical Perdurantism’ The British Journal of Aesthetics, 48 (1), 80-85 DOI: 10.1093/aesthj/aym037
I think that Dodd should not accept (2P). I often perceive things without perceiving all their parts. For example, I currently perceive my computer, but I do not perceive some particular atom in the center of my computer. Perhaps there is a way to revise this principle and avoid my worry.
Andrew,
Even endurantists about chairs would not, given this objection, perceive all of the chair on any occasion, since you cannot immediately perceive all of it’s parts. Some parts might not be visible until you break apart the chair. Rather, they would say that over some interval they can perceive all of a chair’s parts. But the same might be true of the musical piece over an interval.
Another worry here concerns the universal quantifier. Do you really have to see all (literally) of a chair’s parts to perceive the whole chair? That’s hard to believe. Would any endurantist deny that he has seen the whole chair on the grounds that he did not perceive the springs inside?
I don’t think chairs or computers are counterexamples to (2P) because you don’t see all of the chair or all of the computer.
I think the endurantist should say that you don’t see the whole chair unless (as I think Mike may have in mind) the quantifiers involved here are very restricted.
In fact, I think there are very few things that we strictly speaking see all of.
However, these examples may give Caplan and Matheson another way to resist Dodd. We regularly talk about seeing all of something in situations where the quantifier is implicitly restricted. Caplan and Matheson might say that ‘hearing all of a work of music’ involves a similar kind of restriction.
We regularly talk about seeing all of something in situations where the quantifier is implicitly restricted. Caplan and Matheson might say that ‘hearing all of a work of music’ involves a similar kind of restriction.
To my ear, that is very persuasive. We clearly do restrict quantifiers in claims about seeing chairs, etc. But let me offer a counterexample to (2P)
(2P) For any x, y, z, and t, if x perceives all of y at t and z is a part of y, then x perceives z at t.
1. I perceive all of the water in the glass at t, hydrogen atoms are parts of the water, but I do not perceive the hydrogen atoms at t.
You don’t want to say that I can perceive all of the water only if I can perceive hydrogen atoms.
2. Similar arguments will run for all material objects.
3. There are also parts of objects that are not necessary to it being wholly present. Richard Feynman talks about how objects–like chairs–lose and gain atoms all the time. Suppose I could see atoms. Suppose too that I fail to see an atom A that is such that A is a part of chair C at t and C would still be wholly present were it to lose A. My seeing the whole chair would not require that I see A. Mini-proof. Assume that at t’ C lacks A. At t’ I can see the whole chair C. Therefore, at t I can see the whole chair without seeing A, contrary to (2P).
Non-philospher, here. 🙂
Each time a work is performed, it’s different. Particularly in the case of a rock band that has some number in their repetoir that’s popular – members of the band come and go, backup artists and singers might only join in for one particular gig, and the performance might evolve over time (sometimes in the course of one tour, as the band members find gaps to fill in – a bad habit, but tempting).
What persists? Well … why do the fans cheer when they hear that first opening chord, or riff? They recognise the song as being the same one as one they know and like. If you want to address the question “what gives this bit of music a persistent identity”, I think you examine that moment of recognition. Identity is always a slippery thing, if you don’t address context.
One of the most obvious things to look at when asking what persists is the “hooks” in a piece – try playing “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner without the “ta DA da DA dum”.
I think we humans handle identity not by appreciating a thing “in toto” – I mean, who can? – but by picking individual features and assuming the rest. I’ve heard people *butcher* the lyrics to “Khe Sahn”, skip out the entire second verse of “Play that funky music, white boy”, but it’s still recognisably the same work.