La philosophie du Son

We discuss the distinction between the sensory modalities; the metaphysics of sounds; and the structure of sound space. We defend a physicalist conception of sounds, without accepting the identification of sounds with sound-waves in the medium. Sounds, we hold, are events in resonating objects. We evaluate the two main accounts of orientation in perceptual space: relationism (the theory that an object's position in the perceptual field is determined only by its relation to other objects) and absolutism (the theory that an object's position in the perceptual field is determined only by intrinsic, non-reducible orientation properties). We then address Strawson's problem of whether the logical space of sounds could be spatial in the full sense of the term. In the Appendix, we discuss the logic of perceptual auditory reports, and show their compatibility with our theory of sounds