The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution - Hardcover

Davies, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199658544 ISBN 13: 9780199658541

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The Artful Species explores the idea that our aesthetic responses and art behaviors are connected to our evolved human nature. Our humanoid forerunners displayed aesthetic sensibilities hundreds of thousands of years ago and the art standing of prehistoric cave paintings is virtually uncontested.

In Part One, Stephen Davies analyses the key concepts of the aesthetic, art, and evolution, and explores how they might be related. He considers a range of issues, including whether animals have aesthetic tastes and whether art is not only universal but cross-culturally comprehensible.

Part Two examines the many aesthetic interests humans take in animals and how these reflect our biological interests, and the idea that our environmental and landscape preferences are rooted in the experiences of our distant ancestors. In considering the controversial subject of human beauty, evolutionary psychologists have traditionally focused on female physical attractiveness in the context of mate selection, but Davies presents a broader view which decouples human beauty from mate choice and explains why it goes more with social performance and self-presentation.

Part Three asks if the arts, together or singly, are biological adaptations, incidental byproducts of nonart adaptations, or so removed from biology that they rate as purely cultural technologies. Davies does not conclusively support any one of the many positions considered here, but argues that there are grounds, nevertheless, for seeing art as part of human nature. Art serves as a powerful and complex signal of human fitness, and so cannot be incidental to biology. Indeed, aesthetic responses and art behaviors are the touchstones of our humanity.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Davies teaches philosophy at The University of Auckland. He writes mainly about aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and has written extensively on the definition of art, the ontological character of artworks, cross-cultural aesthetics, the expression of emotion in art, and the interpretation and evaluation of art. His books include Musical Works and Performances (Clarendon, 2001), Themes in the Philosophy of Music (OUP, 2003), The Philosophy of Art (Blackwell, 2006), Philosophical Perspectives on Art (OUP, 2007), and Musical Understandings (OUP, 2011).

Review:

"Artifacts possessing aesthetic sensibility have been discovered that date back to humankind's earliest ancestors. When this discovery is coupled with the idea that art and its appreciation remain a prominent part of human history, the question of the connection between evolution, art, and one's aesthetic sense becomes significant. Davies offers a thorough and engaging exploration of this precise question."--CHOICE

"[T]his book is of considerable value. Taking Davies's criticisms seriously would certainly enhance the quality of research in this area." -- Mind

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0199658544
• ISBN 13: 9780199658541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240