Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

Tag Archives: cognitive science

February 13, 2020
by Aesthetics for Birds
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What is Art? Let Cognitive Science Help You Answer That Question

What follows is a guest post by Shen-yi Liao, Aaron Meskin, and Joshua Knobe. They offer an overview and summary of the ideas in their new paper, “Dual Character Art Concepts,” just out in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. (Non-paywalled version available here.) Alfie: This sculpture is not art. I know many people think it is art, but when you think about what art really is, you will realize that it is not art at all. Betty: Of course this is art. It is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art! Alfie: I know. But all the same, it’s not a true work of art. It’s impersonal factory-produced rubbish. Betty: Wait, I agree that this sculpture is completely awful in every way, but still, it’s obviously a piece of art.

May 17, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Workshop in Aesthetics and Cognitive Science

The American Society for Aesthetics is providing $4000 to support the Workshop in Aesthetics and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, June 28, 2017. The Workshop is being held in conjunction with the 2017 meeting of the Society of Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) June 28-July 1. Funding for the workshop is also being provided by the Neuroaesthetics Initiative of Johns Hopkins’ Brain Science Institute (BSI) and by the Johns Hopkins Humanities Institute (JHU HI). The organizers are Steven Gross (Johns Hopkins, Philosophy) and Mohan Matthen (University of Toronto, Philosophy). The workshop will consist of three invited symposia (on art and skill, art and pleasure, and creativity), with four speakers each; a general roundtable discussion; a dance performance and discussion; a closing reception; and a poster session. Wednesday, June 28 – Saturday, July 1, 2017 Johns Hopkins University Keynote Speakers: Brit Brogaard, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Alison Gopnik, and Dan Schacter Invited … Continue reading →

May 16, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Psych Study Proves Kant Right (and Wrong) About Beauty

There’s a discussion over at Daily Nous about a psychology study in which the authors: confirm Kant’s claim that only the pleasure associated with feeling beauty requires thought and disprove his claim that sensuous pleasures cannot be beautiful. So, they try to prove Kant right about beauty involving cognitive functions, but prove him wrong about sensuous pleasures. They also found in general that beautiful things yielded higher pleasure than purely sensual stimuli. Pleasure amplitude increases linearly with the feeling of beauty. (Well, it still reads better than Kant.) So here’s the basic methodology. Neither wishing to encumber our participants with philosophical baggage nor wishing to spoil the test by revealing our hypothesis, we left “beauty” undefined and simply asked the participant at the end of each trial: “During this trial, did you get the feeling of beauty from the object?” We used various stimuli: seeing a plain or beautiful image, sucking a candy, … Continue reading →

July 6, 2015
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Neuroscience & Appreciation: Very Funny Indeed…

What follows is a guest post by William P. Seeley. William is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. He will be teaching seminar in Aesthetic & Cognitive Science at Yale University in the fall of 2015 and a seminar in autonomous robotics and embodied cognition at Bates College in the spring of 2016. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from CUNY-The Graduate Center, an M.F.A. in sculpture from Columbia University, and a B.A. in philosophy from Columbia University. His research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy of art, cognitive science, and embodied cognition. His welded steel constructions have been exhibited in New York City and at a number of colleges and university galleries.