Talk about Music: From Wolterstorffian Ambiguity to Generics

Abstract

The main aim of this essay is that of defending a certain analysis of sentences that play a central role in our discourse about music, such as ... or ... The first two sections summarize and criticize what has become the standard treatment of these examples, grounded on Nicholas Wolterstorff's suggestion that the predicates they involve are systematically ambiguous. Sections III and IV develop an alternative view and defend an analysis of typical occurrences of (1)–(2) as generic statements.2 Given the ubiquity of examples of this sort, the assessment of their semantic properties appears to be of general, independent interest. Moreover, it is arguably also the case that the study of (1) and (2) has repercussions on at least some issues in the contemporary debate on the ontology of music. In Section V, I explain how, at least given certain reasonable methodological assumptions, the generic analysis of (1)–(2) points in the direction of a dissolution of certain disputes about the metaphysical makeup of musical works.

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