Sonicism holds that works are identical just in case they sound exactly alike. This chapter presents a version of this thesis — timbral sonicism — as the face-value way of individuating musical works. Timbral sonicism is defended against the putative counter-examples with which it is confronted by instrumentalists: philosophers (such as Levinson and Stephen Davies) who hold that compositions composed for different instruments count as numerically distinct, even if the said works are sonically indistinguishable. The chapter concludes that such putative counter-examples, though ingenious, admit of convincing sonicist replies.
Keywords: individuation, Stephen Davies, Levinson, sonicism, timbral sonicism