Review of Art & Art-Attempts by Christy Mag Uidhir

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2015

2017

An example of philosophy's instrumentality to artistic practice. (Case study of a research project as it slips from artist based qualitative to philosophical academic-based dissertation and then back again)

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2004

Art and Human Nature I. INTRODUCTION common to humankind, something bred in the bone, so to speak. The concept of human nature unavoidably The reasoning here is straightforward, implies the existence of nearly universal regunamely, that the same global effect is apt to larities across the human species-regularities, have the same cause. If that cause is not ultimlike language use, most probably explicable in ately cultural diffusion from a single source, terms of biology and evolutionary psychology. then we must look elsewhere-to enduring fea-Thus, linking the arts to human nature implicitly tures of the human organism as it has evolved to promises to connect the arts to long-term, engage recurring adaptive challenges.2 Or, to enduring, nearly universal features of the put the matter more simply, we must look to human frame. That is, if art is rooted in human human nature as at least part of the explanation nature, then it is a response, at least in part, to of why we have art as we know it. elements of our evolved cognitive, perceptual, Moreover, it is not just the fact that we find and emotive architecture that are either necesart distributed globally that suggests a considerasary for social life, or conducive to it, or that are tion of its evolutionary heritage. There is also side-effects from features that are. the related phenomenon that people of different For some, this will sound scarcely exceptioncultures are able to recognize, at rates that are able, since we are prone to say that virtually hardly random, the products of other cultures as every known human culture has what we call artworks. As Stephen Davies notes, "I am arts, including narrative (oral and written), imageimpressed by how accessible to Westerners is making, carving, whittling, sculpting, chanting, much sub-Saharan music, Chinese painting, and dance, song, decoration, acting, mime, and so woven carpets from the Middle East."3 And the on.' And inasmuch as this is a feature of human same sort of cross-cultural recognizability can societies, exemplified across the species, we be observed of non-Westerners in regard to our would expect to find that its explanation-like art; Western mass culture could not be so easily the explanation of our linguistic capacitiesexported were it otherwise. goes rather deep, to something inherent in This, of course, is not to say that the citizens human nature. of disparate societies grasp the significance in Although every known culture appears to their full cultural complexity of artworks from possess art, it is improbable that this can be other societies. Rather, the point is that, to an explained in terms of art's originating in a sinarresting degree, Europeans can recognize a gle location at one time and then being dissemstatue of Ganesha as an artwork without being inated gradually therefrom. Rather, art seems to able to know its symbolic import. Appreciating have sprung up independently in different the meaning of such a figurine, needless to say, locales and at different times, often apart from requires contextual or background knowledge outside influences. But if the worldwide distriof the sort that is available to the untutored bution of art cannot be explained by cultural Westerner only from a participant of the relediffusion, then the alternative that recommends vant culture, or by way of an anthropologist, or itself is that art has its origins in something an art historian. Nevertheless, it remains a The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62:2 Spring 2004 96 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism striking fact that we can recognize-to a perhistorical research on the arts need not be seen haps surprising extent-the artworks of other as locked in a zero-sum struggle. Both kinds of cultures, as other peoples can recognize ours, research have important contributions to make even where we are unable to decipher them or to our understanding of art and aesthetic experidiscern their historical significance.4 But how is ence, not only in the sense that sometimes one this possible? of these perspectives is better suited than the Again, a very attractive hypothesis is that we other to explain certain aspects of the phenohave an inbred capacity to detect the expressive mena, but also in the sense that sometimes these behavior of our conspecifics as it is inscribed in perspectives can mutually inform one another. the sensuous media of the traditional arts. We Indeed, I hope to show that in some cases may not know what a tribal decoration means, psychology, including evolutionary psychobut we know that, by means of it, its maker logy, may enrich historical explanations. In intends to communicate something special, order to motivate this claim, I will try to indisomething that is worth remarking on.5 cate how aspects of the development of certain Of course, it is not my contention that every mass art forms, such as film and TV, can be artwork is recognizable as such by anyone from fruitfully discussed psychologically in terms of any culture. We would not predict that just anythe ways in which they address human nature. one from anywhere could recognize many of Duchamp's readymades as artworks. Many from our own culture have been tripped up by II. THE CASE AGAINST HUMAN NATURE these examples, though, it should be noted, that their manner of display ought to have given Before attempting to substantiate the usefulness onlookers food for thought. of discussing art in relation to human nature, it Still, to a rather surprising degree, the artwill perhaps be instructive to review briefly some works of foreign societies are cross-culturally of the reasons that specialists in the humanities recognizable as artworks and that calls for have had for resisting this approach.6 Here my explanation. And since the phenomenon is crosspurpose is not to reject the many deep insights cultural, and not readily explicable in terms of that cultural-historical approaches have yielded. merely cultural diffusion, the invocation of human Nor is it to urge that cultural approaches be nature appears irresistible. Moreover, since this supplanted across the board by ones informed recognizability, where it occurs, seems most by evolutionary psychology and cognitive scilikely with what can be called the traditional ence. Rather, my point is that cultural-historical arts, the suggestion that human nature plays an approaches may be profitably supplemented, important role in our explanation here appears especially in the explanation of certain artistic apposite, since the relevant, enduring features phenomena, by talking about human nature. of our cognitive, perceptual, and emotive archi-Earlier I claimed that the appeal to human tecture were in place when the more traditional nature seems unobjectionable on the face of it, forms of art and expression emerged. since it appears that almost every known culture Nevertheless, despite the prima facie case possesses art. Undeniably, this art comes in that can be made that art has something to do many different forms. However, the diversity of with human nature-conceived of in terms of art across different societies should no more our enduring, evolved cognitive, perceptual, discourage us from looking for a common cause and emotive architecture-it is also true that for here than the diversity of different languages over two decades, researchers in the humanities deters us from attempting to locate the human have resisted universalizing modes of analysis, capacity for language in our common human such as evolutionary psychology and cognitive nature. That is, where we are dealing with cogscience, preferring, almost exclusively, to hisnate phenomena, it pays to look for a common toricize artistic phenomenon in the conviction cause. that, as they say, "it's culture all the way But many in the humanities today are apt to down." question my first premise. They will deny that In contrast, in this essay I want to stress that art is universal, thereby vitiating the grounds for biologically informed research and culturalan appeal to human nature. They may point out,