Oniontology

The previous, however sketchy, discussion of the history of performance theory has exhibited a split development between philosophical and empirical perspectives. Uniting such categorically different aspects not only is a question of finding a common language, but also requires a unifying epistemological approach. The present state of the art lacks unity on a deeper ontological level. It is, in fact, not even clear which dimensions of musical ontology are involved when dealing with the totality of performance. Evidently, we cannot neglect its deeper semantics, neither can we reduce the topic to purely quantitative, positivistic positions. It turns out that performance is above all complex through its ramified ontological richness.