Musical Minimalism and the Metaphysics of Time

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Nemesio García-Carril Puy, “Musical Minimalism and the Metaphysics of Time,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 74, no. 4 (2018): 1267–1306, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2018_74_4_1267.

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Musical Minimalism and the Metaphysics of Time

Type	Journal Article
Author	Nemesio García-Carril Puy
Rights	© 2018 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural \| © 2018 Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
Volume	74
Issue	4
Pages	1267-1306
Publication	Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
ISSN	0870-5283
Date	2018
DOI	10.17990/RPF/2018_74_4_1267
Language	English
Abstract	I defend in this paper the thesis that there is a complex relation between minimalist musical works and the metaphysics of time, involving ontological, epistemological and axiological issues. This relation is explained by means of three sub-theses. The first one is that minimalist musical works literally exemplify –in Goodman’s sense– the properties ascribed to time by the metaphysical static view: 1) minimalist works intrinsically possess those properties by being composed according to the technique of minimal repetition; 2) they extrinsically refer to those properties in virtue of pragmatic processes of accommodation of disagreements on what is taken to be common ground in a particular musical context. The second sub-thesis is that, in exemplifying those properties, minimalist musical works are valuable from two perspectives: a formalist one, according to which minimalist works purify the concept of what a musical work is; and a cognitive one, insofar they allow us to obtain phenomenal knowledge of what it is like to experience time as the static view conceives it. The third sub-thesis is that each particular minimalist musical work is valuable insofar it achieves either the formalist or the cognitive goals in an original way.
Date Added	23/01/2019, 18:45:26
Modified	24/01/2019, 11:02:38

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