quite an effort) the amount of food required for his survival. Does this piece ofinformation make the unequal distribution just? We contend that the answer is still‘No’. If we are right, then this example shows that it is fair for parents to act partiallytowards their children, but only as long as this partiality does not give their childrencomparative advantage.

We hope the points raised here provide a foretaste of the considerable theoreticalinterest which political philosophers, and those generally interested in equality andsocial justice, will find in this book. It offers a careful yet refreshing analysis of widelydiscussed theories, along with an original attempt to construct a new approach foraddressing questions of equality and social justice. As a rigorous philosophical piece,the book leaves the reader not only with a clearer account of the points discussedbut also with a series of intriguing new questions which will be generated by closereflection on these points.

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem A -S Y R

Works of Music. B J D. (Oxford UP, . Pp. xi + . Price £..)

Musical Platonism, the view that musical works are abstract entities which share atype/token relation with their performances, exist eternally, and cannot changetheir intrinsic properties, is a contentious view, though in many respects it is also anintuitive one. Dodd claims (and I agree) that some version of musical Platonism isthe ‘default position’, that when faced with the peculiarity of musical works and theirrepeatability one is intuitively drawn towards a Platonist view. However, the Platon-ist view is not easily accepted. Despite its intuitive pull, other intuitions work againstthe Platonic view: we think of musical works as entities which suffer change and arecreated at a specific point in time. Against this latter intuition, the Platonist wouldhave us believe that musical works are discovered rather than created. For these(and other) reasons, various theorists have rejected the Platonist account. WhatDodd attempts to do in this book is to answer these objections comprehensively so asto demonstrate that there is a version of musical Platonism which is not simplyintuitive but also correct. His strategy is to show that those intuitions unfavourableto the Platonic view can either be accepted or harmlessly explained away, while thefavourable intuitions are best served by musical Platonism. His defence is impressivefor its sincerity, thoroughgoingness, clarity and analytical subtlety.

Dodd defends two central claims regarding the ontological category of musicalworks and the way in which works are individuated. First, musical works are norm-types, meaning that a well formed performance-token would instantiate all of thenorm-properties associated with the work; however, performance-tokens which failto do this may still count as instances of the work, merely non-normative ones.Following Wolterstorff, types are said to bind together their tokens through thetoken’s instantiation of the type’s property-associate – the type K is related to theproperty-associate being a k (§.). The notion of a property-associate describes whatis required for an object to be a properly formed token of that type; and sinceproperties exist eternally, so too do property-associates, and so too do types (§.).

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An unintuitive (non-Platonic) consequence of this view is that musical works are notcreated at the time of their composition (since musical works are types, and typesexist eternally). However, Dodd accepts this consequence, as it is unproblematic forthe Platonist. According to the Platonist, a composer does not create something exnihilo; rather, ‘The composer selects certain properties of a descriptive sound-eventtype as normative, and, in so doing, thereby selects an eternally existent norm-type.The composer unearths something that was already there: he discovers criteria forcorrect performance’ (p. ). This may not agree with pre-theoretical intuitions, butintuitions can be wrong, and there is nothing inconsistent in the notion of creativediscovery (§.). Further, Dodd argues that opposing accounts of musical workswould lead to unacceptable problems. In chs and respectively he argues thatworks of music cannot be either enduring or perduring particulars (i.e., continuants),and that they cannot be ‘compositional acts’ either.

Secondly, chs and contain Dodd’s defence of sonicism, which is the view thattwo works are identical if they sound alike: ‘A work of music W and a work of musicW* are numerically identical if and only if W and W* are acoustically indis-tinguishable’ (p. ). Thus two works in possession of the same set of acousticalnorm-properties would thereby be identical works. In making this claim, Doddrejects those accounts of individuation (associated with Levinson) which placeadditional constraints on instrumentation or musico-historical context. Dodd’sreason for this view is his claim that types describe a certain sound-sequence-event,and the means of production or musico-historical context of their composition hasno effect on the acoustical properties of a sound-sequence-event. To believe other-wise would be to treat musical works as particulars rather than types, which Doddbelieves they are not.

Dodd’s handling of these issues is impressive and very persuasive. However,despite this, his proposed account raises a new epistemological puzzle. The problemarises specifically if he is right that there potentially exist an infinite number ofuninstantiated types, and that the properties associated with each type are modallyand temporally inflexible – two claims which underwrite his view of creative com-position as an act of discovery. In §. he considers and rejects the claim thatmusical works are able to change their properties over time, an argument aimedprimarily at Rohrbaugh. Dodd argues that when a composer makes a change to apreviously indicated work, however minor the change, what has really happened isthat the composer has now indicated (and thereby discovered) a new work of music.The original work still exists, evidently: the original version of the work could beperformed again. As Dodd says, ‘When an object changes, it no longer exists in itsprevious state’ (p. ), but this is not the case with changes to a work of music. As Wand W* could easily be performed alongside one another, then clearly W and W*exist simultaneously. Works of music do not change; rather, other very closelyrelated works, previously uninstantiated, are simply discovered.

The important point to note here is Dodd’s claim ‘Any development of thescore, however minor, amounts to the indication of a distinct object’ (p. ). ThoughW and W* might be similar in many respects, they are still different works,provided that each type is associated with a distinct set of norm-properties. The

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epistemological problem arises here. Suppose W and W* differ in tempo but areidentical in all other respects. Both works contain the same note sequence and thesame instrumentation y; however, W ’s tempo is very strictly set at bpm (beatsper minute), while W* has a vaguer tempo marking, simply ‘allegro’ (which isroughly bpm to bpm). This means that well formed performances of W willinclude only those performed at exactly bpm, while any performance playedbetween bpm and bpm would count as a well formed instance of W*. If x isa performance of sound-sequence y which has a tempo of exactly bpm, is this aperformance of W, or of W*? These works are distinct (however minor the differ-ences), and performance x would satisfy the norm-properties for both works. Pre-sumably the ambiguity could be settled by simply asking the musicians which scorethey had performed from, but the epistemological consequence is this: no matterhow sophisticated listeners may be, they cannot know which work they have heardsimply by listening. The source of this epistemological ambiguity is Dodd’s belief inthe existence of an infinite number of closely similar norm-types.

Perhaps this is merely a curious consequence of Dodd’s view which the Platonistwould simply accept. Dodd sets epistemological (and evaluative) questions apartfrom ontological ones. Perhaps we cannot know which work has been performedsimply by listening, but this is an epistemological problem, not an ontological one; acorrect ontological theory might entail certain epistemic disadvantages. I amsomewhat sympathetic towards this view. However, I wonder at what point the epi-stemological consequences become too severe to be consistent with one’s favouredontology. Perhaps there is some room for Dodd to avoid this puzzle. Given that allwell formed tokens of W would also satisfy W*, perhaps Dodd would simply arguethat W and W* are in fact identical through sonicism, since all well formed tokens ofW would be acoustically indistinguishable from a subclass of tokens of W*. How-ever, if he did take this line, then an explanation would still be required of how tinya difference between two works his position can allow.

These criticisms aside, Dodd’s book is a fascinating work, which would appeal toa wide readership. I believe it may present the best possible case for musicalPlatonism; whether drawn towards musical Platonism or inclined to reject it, allreaders would do well to start here. Also, given the importance of ontologicalquestions within the philosophy of music, and the unique challenges music presentsfor the ontology of art, Dodd’s book should be read by anyone interested in either ofthese areas.

Appalachian State University C B

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