The Ontology of Musical Versions: Introducing the Hypothesis of Nested Types

Abstract

This article explores the ontological nature of musical versions. I assume the widespread view that type/token ontologies offer the best explanation of the repeatable nature of works of music. However, I show that traditional type/token theories, which distinguish only between two levels of objects, face two problems when applied to the phenomenon of musical versions. First, they are not able to accommodate the familiar intuition of our musical practices that the work versioned is repeated in its versions’ performances. Second, they are not able to distinguish between two different phenomena of our practices: the phenomenon of a work's versions and the phenomenon of works inspired by, or derived from, other works. These undesirable consequences are entailed, under traditional two-level type/token theories, by the nature of types as ontologically thin entities. I defend that the hypothesis of nested types, a multiple-level type/token theory, can avoid these two problems while preserving the theoretical virtues of traditional two-level type/token theories and structural monism—the most widely shared view about the individuation of musical works, according to which musical works are individuated by one, and only one, sound structure.