Abstracts


The following papers have been accepted for presentation at AAP 2013. If you've just submitted an abstract, it may take a few days to appear.

< Back
Name: Mr Anton Killin
Institution: Victoria University of Wellington
Title: Fictionalism about musical works
Abstract: In this paper I defend fictionalism about musical works. After overviewing fictionalism generally, I discuss and assess the views of three theorists: Robert Martin, Andrew Kania, and Ross Cameron. Each of these philosophers defend something like a fictionalist construal of our thought and talk about musical works, though Cameron's view in particular is nihilist, and in Martin and Kania's cases, the fictionalist aspect of their view is underdeveloped. In this paper I go further. I motivate fictionalism about musical works, explain the view in detail and defend the view against various objections.
Keywords: fictionalism; antirealism; musical works; music ontology; metaphysics of music