Works of Music

In this original and iconoclastic book, Julian Dodd argues for what he terms ‘the simple view’ of the ontological nature of works of pure, instrumental music. According to the simple view’s first constituent thesis – the type-token theory – such works are eternally existent types of sound-sequence-event and, hence, items discovered rather than created by their composers. According to the simple view’s second constituent thesis – timbral sonicism – musical works are
identical just in case they sound exactly alike.