TENPROBLEMSOFNEUROAESTHETICS

The future of the art/science relationship does not only concern the field of artistic creation, but also the field of aesthetic experience. In fact, whereas aesthetics has existed as a philosophical discipline since the 18th century, more and more scientific experimental works study aesthetic experience. Philosophical aesthetics now shares its object of study with what is often called neuroaesthetics. The aim of this chapter is to shape a common vision enabling philosophical aesthetics and neuroaesthetics to pool their results and their tools so that the research world does not suffer from a regrettable scission in the field of theory of artistic theory. Indeed, aesthetics seems to have a lot to gain from physiological studies dealing, on the one hand, with the capacity of cognitive processes to adapt to non-routine situations and, on the other hand, with the capacity of these adaptations to be felt by individuals.

BioSocieties, 2012

2014

Neuroaesthetics is a young enough field that there seems to be no established view of its proper subject matter. Morphologically, the term implies the scientific study of neural aspects of the perception of artworks such as paintings, or elements of artworks such as musical intervals. We are concerned, however, that practitioners of this new field may not be aware of the tremendous ambiguities inherent in the terms “aesthetics ” and “art, ” ones that limit a proper understanding of human art behavior. Connotations of these terms are particularly inappropriate and mis-leading when considering the experiences, practices, and functions of the arts in preindustrial, folk, aboriginal, or Pleistocene societies, and even in contemporary popular culture. It is only during the last two centuries that the terms “Art ” (with an implied capital A, connoting an independent realm of prestigious and revelatory works) and “aesthetics ” (as a unique, and even reverential, mode of attention toward su...

Neuroaesthetics (M. Skov and O. Vartanian, eds.), 2009

Neuroaesthetics, 2018

Neuroaesthetics is a young enough field that there seems to be no established view of its proper subject matter. Morphologically, the term implies the scientific study of neural aspects of the perception of artworks such as paintings, or elements of artworks such as musical intervals. We are concerned, however, that practitioners of this new field may not be aware of the tremendous ambiguities inherent in the terms "aesthetics" and "art," ones that limit a proper understanding of human art behavior. Connotations of these terms are particularly inappropriate and misleading when considering the experiences, practices, and functions of the arts in preindustrial, folk, aboriginal, or Pleistocene societies, and even in contemporary popular culture. It is only during the last two centuries that the terms "Art" (with an implied capital A, connoting an independent realm of prestigious and revelatory works) and "aesthetics" (as a unique, and even reverential, mode of attention toward such works) have taken on their present elitist meanings and become unavoidably intertwined (Davies, 2006; Shiner, 2001). The word "aesthetic" (from the Greek aiesthesis, having to do with the senses) was first used in 1735 by a German philosopher in a book on poetry (Baumgarten, 1735/1954), and since that time has been employed in two different, but not always distinct, ways. Enlightenment philosophers and their followers gradually developed the now elitist notion of "the aesthetic"-a special form of disinterested knowledge and appreciation-to describe the emotional response elicited by the perception of great works of art (Shiner, 2001). While this meaning of aesthetic has strong historical connections with the arts and with artworks, a second usage has come to refer to any value system having to do with the appreciation of beauty, such as the beauty of nature. In recent decades, for example, some ethologists and evolutionary psychologists have adopted this second, broader notion of aesthetics in a new field, originally called "landscape

2023

Since ancient, if not primordial, times, humans wondered about art: why do we have art? How did we come to have art? What is the value of having art? Why do we experience pleasure in relation to art, and why does some art engender more pleasure than other art, and that only, apparently, for some people and not for all of us? Answering such questions is beyond the scope of a single book. Nor is it appropriate for a course manual to do more than set out the questions, provide informative contexts as well as equip readers and students with a basic set of skills to enable them to at least begin a journey of discovery. Hence, the present textbook aims to offer exactly that. We will begin a marvellous questing journey and walk the sometimes beaten, sometimes arduous, path, together, for a

Aesthetic Investigations, 2020

In recent neuroaesthetic discussion, neuroscientists have linked aesthetic pleasure to the brain’s reward systems, but they have also attempted to dissociate it from utilitarian rewards and ultimately explain it as a disinterested state of mind. This paper examines this neuroaesthetic approach, juxtaposing it with elements of phenomenological thought on the subject of aesthetic disinterestedness, to present three interrelated concerns that can be raised from a phenomenological perspective, as well as to outline how to overcome these problems phenomenologically. The paper ends with the suggestion that neuroaesthetics, if it is ever going to offer something important or useful regarding our understanding of aesthetic experience, has to become phenomenologically sensitive and informed.

PLoS Biology, 2013

Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, 2011