Not music, but musics: A case for conceptual pluralism in aesthetics

Adrian Currie, Anton Killin

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We argue for conceptual pluralism about music. In our view, there is no right answer to the question 'What is music?' divorced from some context or interest. Instead, there are several, non-equivalent music concepts suited to different interests - from within some tradition or practice, or by way of some research question or field of inquiry. We argue (1) that unitary definitions of music are problematic, (2) that the role music concepts play in various research questions should motivate conceptual pluralism about music, and (3) that taking music pluralism seriously grounds a fruitful research programme in aesthetics. We suspect that pluralism about music is a good test case for the utility of pluralism in aesthetics more generally, and we present it as such.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)151-174
    Number of pages24
    JournalEstetika : The Central European Journal of Aesthetics
    Volume54
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

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