The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology

470 Pages·2012·2.415 MB·English

by  Elisabeth Schellekens, Peter Goldie

The Aesthetic Mind
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The Aesthetic Mind
Philosophy and Psychology
EDITED BY
Elisabeth Schellekens
and Peter Goldie
1
3
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ISBN 978–0–19–969151–7
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Contents
ListofFigures viii
NotesonContributors ix
Introduction 1
ElisabethSchellekensandPeterGoldie
Part I. The Psychology of the Aesthetic
1. TheMasteroftheMasekBeds:Handaxes,Art,andtheMindsof
EarlyHumans 9
GregoryCurrie
2. TheFragilityofAestheticKnowledge:AestheticPsychologyand
AppreciativeVirtues 32
MatthewKieran
3. Neuroscience,Biology,andBrainEvolutioninVisualArt 44
DahliaW.Zaidel
4. FactandFictionintheNeuropsychologyofArt 54
RomanFriggandCatherineHoward
Part II. Emotion in Aesthetic Experience
5. EmotionandAestheticValue 71
JessePrinz
6. BeautyisFelt,NotCalculated;anditDoesNotFitinBoxes 89
RoddyCowie
7. TheEthicsofAestheticBootstrapping 106
PeterGoldie
8. TheOriginsofAesthetics:ANeurobiologicalBasisforAffective
FeelingsandAesthetics 116
EdmundT.Rolls
Part III. Beauty and Universality
9. BeautyisInstinctiveFeeling:ExperimentingonAestheticsandArt 169
I.C.McManus
vi CONTENTS
10. BeautyisNotOne:TheIrreducibleVarietyofVisualBeauty 190
JerroldLevinson
11. Aesthetics:TheApproachfromSocialAnthropology 208
RobertLayton
12. ExperiencingtheAesthetic:KantianAutonomyorEvolutionaryBiology? 223
ElisabethSchellekens
Part IV. Imagination and Make-Believe
13. ImaginationUnblocked 239
AaronMeskinandJonathanM.Weinberg
14. AnAttitudeTowardsthePossible:TheContributionsofPretend
PlaytoLaterAdultConsciousness 254
DorothyG.SingerandJeromeL.Singer
15. UnpackingtheBoxes:TheCognitiveTheoryofImagination
andAesthetics 268
KathleenStock
Part V. Fiction and Empathy
16. EnactingtheOther:TowardsanAestheticsofFeelingin
LiteraryReading 285
DavidS.Miall
17. OnKeepingPsychologyOutofLiteraryCriticism 299
PeterLamarque
18. MirroringFictionalOthers 313
ZannaClayandMarcoIacoboni
Part VI. Music, Dance, and Expressivity
19. MovinginConcert:DanceandMusic 333
Noe¨lCarrollandMargaretMoore
20. ‘I’llBeYourMirror’?EmbodiedAgency,Dance,andNeuroscience 346
DavidDavies
21. MusicandEmotion:PsychologicalConsiderations 357
WilliamFordeThompsonandLenaQuinto
22. Cross-CulturalMusicalExpressiveness:TheoryandtheEmpirical
Programme 376
StephenDavies
CONTENTS vii
Part VII. Pictorial Representation and Appreciation
23. NeurologyandtheNewRiddleofPictorialStyle 391
MarkRollins
24. VarietiesofPictorialJudgement:AFunctionalAccount 414
NormanH.Freeman
25. PictorialRepresentationandPsychology 427
DerekMatravers
Index 439
List of Figures
1.1 Handaxebandedironstone,c.750,000BP,McGregorMuseum,
Kimberley 12
1.2 Hoxnehandaxe,LowerPalaeolithic,c.400,000BP,Hoxne,Suffolk,
England 12
1.3 HandaxesfromtheMasekBeds,Olduvai.FromM.Leakey(ed.),
OlduvaiGorge,volume5,CambridgeUniversityPress,1994 13
1.4 Ficron,Cuxton,England 14
1.5 Handaxe,SimadelosHuesos,Spain400,000BP 15
8.1 Someoftheemotionsassociatedwithdifferentreinforcement
contingencies 117
8.2 Dualroutestotheinitiationofactioninresponsetorewarding
andpunishingstimuli 123
8.3 TwoForms(January)1967.BarbaraHepworth 145
9.1 Examplesofninedisparatesetsofrectanglepreferences
(fromMcManus,Cook,andHunt,inpress) 178
9.2 Thetwomainunderlyingfactorsfortherectanglepreferences,
reconstructedfromtheQ-modefactoranalysis 179
9.3 Twocomputer-generatedMondrian-likeimages 181
9.4 Exampleofanimageusedinthecroppingexperiment 184
21.1 Anillustrationofthesynchronizationfeedbackmodel 371
24.1 Fourentitlescontractsixbidirectionalrelations 418
Notes on Contributors
NOE¨L CARROLL is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City
UniversityofNewYork.HismostrecentbookisOnCriticism(Routledge,2008).
ZANNA CLAY is a primatologist at the School of Psychology in St Andrews. She studies the
cognitivemechanismsunderlyingcommunicationinaspeciesofgreatape,thebonobo.Being
the closest living relatives to humans, the investigation of bonobo behaviour can provide
important insights into the evolution of human behaviour, including empathy. Much of her
fieldworkisconductedinDRCongo,wherebonobosareendemic.
RODDYCOWIEstudiedphilosophyandpsychologyasanundergraduate(atStirlingandUCLA),
andhisPh.D.(atSussex)wasontherelationshipbetweenhumanandmachinevision.Hewas
appointedLecturerinPsychologyatQueen’sUniversityBelfastin1975,andProfessorin2003.
Hiscoreresearchinterestisinrelationshipsbetweenrationalmodelsofperceptionandexperi-
ences that are intensely subjective and seemingly counter to rational expectation. It has been
followedthroughmanyareas—‘impossibleobjects’,misperceptionsofmovement,thesubjective
experienceofhearingloss,andtheperceptionandexpressionofemotion.Hisworkonemotion
included co-ordinating the EC’s HUMAINE project, which aimed to lay the foundations
foremotion-orientedtechnology.Healsohaslong-standinginterestsinmusicandreligion,as
academicandpractitioner.
GREGORY CURRIE teaches philosophy at the University of Nottingham. His latest book is
Narratives and Narrators (OUP, 2010). He is currently working on the cognitive value of
literature.
DAVID DAVIES is Professor of Philosophy at McGill University. He is the author of Art as
Performance(Blackwell,2004),AestheticsandLiterature(Continuum,2007),andPhilosophyofthe
Performing Arts (Blackwell, forthcoming), and the editor of The Thin Red Line (2008) in the
Routledge series Philosophers on Film. He has published widely in the philosophy of art on
topicsrelatingtoontology,artisticvalue,literature,film,music,theatre,andthevisualarts.He
hasalsopublishedarticlesontopicsinmetaphysics,philosophyoflanguage,philosophyofmind,
andphilosophyofscience.
STEPHENDAVIESisProfessorofPhilosophyattheUniversityofAucklandinNewZealandandan
ex-PresidentoftheAmericanSocietyofAesthetics.Hismainresearchinterestsareinaesthetics
andthephilosophyofart.HisbooksincludeMusicalWorksandPerformances(ClarendonPress,
2001), Themes in the Philosophy of Music (OUP, 2003), Philosophical Perspectives on Art (OUP,
2007), and The Philosophy of Art (Blackwell, 2006). He is co-editor of Companion to Aesthetics
(Wiley-Blackwell,2009,2ndedn.).
NORMAN H. FREEMAN is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development and Senior Research
Fellow in the School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol. His main areas of
research include drawing-production and children’s theory of pictures. He has published two