Contradiction That Never Was: Epigenesis versus Modularity in Evolutionary Aesthetics

Kiianlinna, Onerva

doi:10.36253/aisthesis-13054

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The evolution of such low-level perceptual mechanisms is likely to be very ancient in the evolutionary history of perceptual systems. Scholars in aesthetics-related fields have explored the influence of such perceptual mechanisms on cultural productions such as movies or artworks (J. E. Cutting, 2005; J. E. Cutting et al, 2011;Kiianlinna, 2022;Prum, 2017;see Renoult, 2016, for a review of the different models in evolutionary aesthetics).…”

Section: Perceptual Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

Dubourg,

Thouzeau,

Beuchot

et al. 2024

Preprint

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We hypothesize that fictional stories are highly successful in human cultures partly because they activate evolved cognitive mechanisms, for instance for finding mates (e.g., in romance fiction), exploring the world (e.g., in adventure and speculative fiction), or avoiding predators (e.g., in horror fiction). In this paper, we put forward a comprehensive framework to study fiction through this evolutionary lens. The primary goal of this framework is to carve fictional stories at their cognitive joints using an evolutionary framework. Reviewing a wide range of adaptive variations in human psychology – in personality and developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology, among other disciplines –, this framework also addresses the question of interindividual differences in preferences for different features in fictional stories. It generates a wide range of predictions about the patterns of combinations of such features, according to the pattenrs of variations in the mechanisms triggered by fictional stories. As a result of a highly collaborative effort, we present a comprehensive review of evolved cognitive mechanisms that fictional stories activate. To generate this review, we (1) listed more than 70 adaptive challenges humans faced in the course of their evolution, (2) identified the adaptive psychological mechanisms that evolved in response to such challenges, (3) specified four sources of adaptive variability for the sensitivity of each mechanism (i.e., personality traits, sex, age, and ecological conditions), and (4) linked these mechanisms to the story features that trigger them. This comprehensive framework lays the ground for a theory-driven research program for the study of fictional stories, their content, distribution, structure, and cultural evolution.

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Section: Perceptual Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

Dubourg,

Thouzeau,

Beuchot

et al. 2024

Preprint

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show abstract

“…I hold (without taking a stance on experience here) that "the aesthetic module" concerning aesthetic judgments is a metarepresentational module, or rather, a functional collection of metarepresentational modules. 9 If one wants to explore the potential heuristic value of seeing aesthetic judgment as modular in the first place, the purpose for which the module is 'designed' is forming aesthetic judgments per se [22].…”

Section: Level Of the Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The metarepresentational nature of the process of forming aesthetic judgments means, in a nutshell, that aesthetic judgments need to be subjectively justified. Treating aesthetic judgement as a metarepresentational module, as intuitive inference analogical to reasoning, has been examined in another paper, so to avoid overlap, I go through the argument only briefly [22].…”

Section: Aesthetic Metacognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the hypothesis of Gianluca Consoli, mindreading is a condition for aesthetic experience, because these two coevolved [36] (p. 37). 22 An artifact would be incomprehensible as an aesthetic object without recursively attaching intentional mental state of the maker to it [36] (p. 48). 23 This, in turn, leads to the development of self-reflection, self-constitution, and self-invention, all of which leads into the production of more aesthetic artifacts [36] (pp.…”

Section: Aesthetic Gadget In Transmissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My argument concerns aesthetic judgments as metarepresentations rather than immediate perceptiveness of the senses, in which case Benderian aesthetic sensibility is analogical to metacognitive sensitivity. 15 For the metarepresentational process of forming aesthetic judgments, see [22] (p. 87). 16 For an opposite stance, see [36] (p. 48).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Aesthetic Gadgets: Rethinking Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics

Kiianlinna

2022

Philosophies

Self Cite

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There is a growing appetite for the inclusion of outcomes of empirical research into philosophical aesthetics. At the same time, evolutionary aesthetics remains in the margins with little mutual discussion with the various strands of philosophical aesthetics. This is surprising, because the evolutionary framework has the power to bring these two approaches together. This article demonstrates that the evolutionary approach builds a biocultural bridge between our philosophical and empirical understanding of humans as aesthetic agents who share the preconditions for aesthetic experience, but are not determined by them. Sometimes, philosophers are wary of the evolutionary framework. Does the research program of evolutionary aesthetics presuppose an intrinsic aesthetic instinct that would determine the way we form aesthetic judgments, regardless of the environment with which we interact? I argue that it does not. Imitation and mindreading are considered to be central features of the aesthetic module. Recently, and contrary to the prior view, it has been shown that imitation and mindreading are not likely to be innate instincts but socially learned, yet evolved patterns of behavior. Hence, I offer grounds for the idea that the cognitive aesthetic module(s) is socially learned, too. This outcome questions the need for the traditional differentiation between empirical and philosophical aesthetics.

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Aesthesis, noesis, or both? Enactivism meets representationalism in aesthetics

Kiianlinna

2024

Phenom Cogn Sci

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Two types of systemic models of the mind – the enactivist and the representationalist model – are often depicted as contradictory and mutually exclusive. In this article, I investigate whether they can meaningfully coexist in a viable account of forming aesthetic judgments. I argue that the two models can simultaneously contribute to the understanding of aesthetic judging as an affective cognitive process. First, I clarify why the main disagreement between the models does not apply to the case of aesthetic judging. Second, I trace a possible path for how the two models could be merged in the field of aesthetics. My main argument draws on the idea that perceiving aesthetic value does not belong to basic cognition that can be seen as either enactive or representational, and that hence we can choose to pick the best of both worlds. In other words, we can and indeed should incorporate aspects of both models to do justice to the phenomenon of aesthetic judging. Perceiving aesthetic value requires subjective, or embodied, metacognitive evidence. This representational enactivism entails that the aesthetic subject can be seen as an emergent functional system while the functional sub-systems that constitute the subject can be characterized in representationalist terms.

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Contradiction That Never Was: Epigenesis versus Modularity in Evolutionary Aesthetics

Cited by 3 publications

References 13 publications

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

Aesthetic Gadgets: Rethinking Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics

Aesthesis, noesis, or both? Enactivism meets representationalism in aesthetics

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