Philosophy of the Performing Arts

56 performance and the classical paradigm
performable work itself, if it is a type, cannot possess this property since
it does not unfold in time. What property, then, are we predicating of the
work? It cannot be the property of having only performances that contain
an occurrence of a particular pitch (a G sharp) at a particular place (the
seventh measure). For, we are assuming, performable works can have flawed
performances and thus there could be a performance of Bartok’s piece lack-
ing such an occurrence. Rather, in line with his proposal that we think of
works as norm-types, Wolterstorff suggests that the property ascribed to the
work is that of having such an occurrence in all of its correct or well-formed
performances.
The doctrine of analogical predication allows us to explain how perform-
able works can be, or essentially involve, types yet still be properly appre-
ciated in virtue of the experienced properties of their performances. The
works themselves possess properties analogically related to appreciable prop-
erties of their correct performances – that is to say, properties of requiring
certain appreciable properties in those performances. The appreciable quali-
ties predicated of correct performances can then be referred analogically to
the performable work in our appreciation of the latter. It is because the per-
formable work makes the demands that it does on its correct performances
that those performances have some of the qualities that we experience them
as having. Thus, in appreciating how the orchestra uses the varied sonori-
ties prescribed by Sibelius to such powerful expressive effect, Berthold is at
the same time able to appreciate the performable work for the analogically
related property it possesses – its prescribing (directly or indirectly) that its
correct performances have these experienced qualities.^7
We should note one interesting implication of the doctrine of analogi-
cal predication as it applies to performable works. We usually think of such
works as things with which we can perceptually engage through our pres-
ence at their performances. This is surely right. But we also describe this in
terms of having heard Sibelius’s Second Symphony, or having seen King Lear
or Swan Lake. But if performable works are, as many believe, pure or initi-
ated types, or continuants, or artistic actions, then is it possible to hear or
see the works in hearing or seeing performances of them? There are a couple of
worries one might have here. First, it might seem plausible to say that one
can perceive something visually or aurally only if one stands in an appropri-
ate causal relation to the thing seen or heard. An appropriate causal relation
here would involve some kind of direct or mediated relation to the visible
or acoustic properties of the things seen or heard. For example, it is only
if my visual experiences are appropriately caused by the cup in front of me
that I can be said to perceive that cup in virtue of those experiences. But can
we stand in this kind of causal relation to a type or a continuant? Some have
argued that we are able to indirectly refer to abstract entities like types by