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Aesthetics after Darwin : The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts / Winfried Menninghaus.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Evolution, Cognition, and the ArtsPublisher: Boston, MA : Academic Studies Press, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Description: 1 online resource (176 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781644690000
  • 9781644690017
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 700.1 23
LOC classification:
  • BH39 .M452713 2019
  • BH39 .M452713 2019
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Competitive Courtship and Aesthetic Judgment/Choice: Darwin's Model of the Arts -- 2. The Arts as Promoters of Social Cooperation and Cohesion -- 3. Engagement in the Arts as Ontogenetic Self-(Trans-)Formation -- 4. A Cooptation Model of the Evolution of the Human Arts: When "Sense of Beauty," Play Behavior, Technology, and Symbolic Cognition Join Forces -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Darwin famously proposed that sexual competition and courtship is (or at least was) the driving force of "art" production not only in animals, but also in humans. The present book is the first to reveal that Darwin's hypothesis, rather than amounting to a full-blown antidote to the humanist tradition, is actually strongly informed both by classical rhetoric and by English and German philosophical aesthetics, thereby Darwin's theory far richer and more interesting for the understanding of poetry and song.The book also discusses how the three most discussed hypothetical functions of the human arts--competition for attention and (loving) acceptance, social cooperation, and self-enhancement--are not mutually exclusive, but can well be conceived of as different aspects of the same processes of producing and responding to the arts.Finally, reviewing the current state of archeological findings, the book advocates a new hypothesis on the multiple origins of the human arts, posing that they arose as new variants of human behavior, when three ancient and largely independent adaptions--sensory and sexual selection-driven biases regarding visual and auditory beauty, play behavior, and technology--joined forces with, and were transformed by, the human capacities for symbolic cognition and language.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781644690017

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Competitive Courtship and Aesthetic Judgment/Choice: Darwin's Model of the Arts -- 2. The Arts as Promoters of Social Cooperation and Cohesion -- 3. Engagement in the Arts as Ontogenetic Self-(Trans-)Formation -- 4. A Cooptation Model of the Evolution of the Human Arts: When "Sense of Beauty," Play Behavior, Technology, and Symbolic Cognition Join Forces -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Darwin famously proposed that sexual competition and courtship is (or at least was) the driving force of "art" production not only in animals, but also in humans. The present book is the first to reveal that Darwin's hypothesis, rather than amounting to a full-blown antidote to the humanist tradition, is actually strongly informed both by classical rhetoric and by English and German philosophical aesthetics, thereby Darwin's theory far richer and more interesting for the understanding of poetry and song.The book also discusses how the three most discussed hypothetical functions of the human arts--competition for attention and (loving) acceptance, social cooperation, and self-enhancement--are not mutually exclusive, but can well be conceived of as different aspects of the same processes of producing and responding to the arts.Finally, reviewing the current state of archeological findings, the book advocates a new hypothesis on the multiple origins of the human arts, posing that they arose as new variants of human behavior, when three ancient and largely independent adaptions--sensory and sexual selection-driven biases regarding visual and auditory beauty, play behavior, and technology--joined forces with, and were transformed by, the human capacities for symbolic cognition and language.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)