Aesthetics on the Edge
Recent years have seen an explosion of research on the biological, neural, and psychological foundations of artistic and aesthetic phenomena, which had previously been the province of the social sciences and the humanities. Meanwhile, it is a boom time for meta-philosophy, many new methods have been adopted in aesthetics, and philosophers are tackling the relationship between empirical and theoretical approaches to aesthetics. These eleven essays propose a methodology especially suited to aesthetics, where problems in philosophy are addressed principally by examining how aesthetic phenomena are understood in the human sciences. Since the human sciences include much of the humanities as well as the social, behavioural, and brain sciences, the methodology promises to integrate arts research across the academy. The volume opens with four essays outlining the methodology and its potential. Subsequent essays put the methodology to work, shedding light on the perceptual and social-pragmatic capacities that are implicated in responding to works of art, especially images, but also music, literature, and conceptual art.