Świat sztuki i czas ewolucyjny — dlaczego estetyka współczesna boi się unaukowienia

The criticisms I address in this article provoke questions about the very nature of aesthetic discourse and its relation to scientific approach in art theory. In the article, I try to respond to the author who criticizes me (and evolutionary aesthetics) for disliking avant-garde art and, worse, contemporary aesthetics. I also try to explain that I am not a biological determinist, that I do not consider art an evolutionary adaptation, that I do not practice reductionism, and that I know how evolutionary mechanisms work. I also describe the reasons why the contemporary aesthetics, which the critic represents, is afraid of being scientific, and what this has to do with the need for prestige and belonging to the art world.

Sztuka zwierząt i „paradygmat siatkówkowy” — czym nie jest estetyka ewolucyjna

In the article I defend some of the thesis presented in my book ‘Art as Adaptation: Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics’ (Sztuka jako adaptacja: uniwersalizm w estetyce ewolucyjnej) (2018) against the claims of my critics. I focus especialy on some misreadings regarding the explanatory power of evolutionary science. I try to show that even though evolutionarily informed aesthetics is not a handy tool for analyzing the intrinsically diverse currents of modern and neo-avant-garde art, it does an excellent job of explaining the mental tendencies and typical behaviors behind these practices. I also focus on the artistic abilities of animals and the problematic dominance of the visuality paradigm in the evolutionary approach, topics that are unjustifiably considered to be most momentous in evolutionary aesthetics.

Twórczość jako adaptacja? Sztuka zagrożona wyginięciem…

In this paper I try to defend contemporary art (avant-garde and post-modern) from the criticism of evolutionary aesthetics. Referring to selected theses put forward by Jerzy Luty in his book Art as Adaptation. Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics (2018), I propose an alternative to them in the form of philosophical anthropology (Gehlen) and evolutionary theory considered as bricolage (Jacob). Above all, I challenge the hypotheses of the evolutionarily and biologically adaptive function of art and the condition of pleasure it must necessarily provide.

Sztuka jako adaptacja: uniwersalizm w estetyce ewolucyjnej

The paper is a synoptic review of my monograph Art as an adaptation. Universalism in evolutionary aesthetics (2018), which is the analysis of the evolutionary theory of art — a theoretical phenomenon that has been developed in recent years, a discipline that explains the origin of human admiration for beauty and human inclination to create and admire art based on Darwinian theories of natural and sexual selection. The main objective of the paper is to determine to what extent the evolutionary perspective enriches our concept of art and whether naturalization and universalization of the analysis of art can be enlivening for aesthetics in the face of its crisis. On a more general level, the aim of the work is to demonstrate that the use of evolutionary hypotheses in the humanities, based on the achievements of, among others, biology and evolutionary psychology, human behavioural ecology and cognitive archaeology, can become a recipe for the conceptual and identity impasse in the humanities in general. In the paper I make a case for the claim that the evolutionary study of art and artistic behaviour indicates art’s inalienability “as a result of the inner human need”. It also formulates justified assumptions in a philosophical debate on the existence of aesthetic universals and the credibility of the universalist position in art theory. According to this, art operates as part of a natural, immutable apparatus of sensations, universal to all humans.

Estetyka ewolucyjna: między uniwersalizmem a adaptacją

The publication of Jerzy Luty’s book is a very good opportunity to look at the achievements of contemporary evolutionary aesthetics. In Jerzy Luty’s book one can find not only a successful and accurate presentation of the views of E. Dissaneyake and D. Dutton, but also the discussion of a number of difficult problems arising from the analysis of the nature and function of art from the evolutionary point of view. One such problem is undoubtedly the problem of the universalism of art, while another is the problem of art as adaptation. In the paper, I discuss and analyse the original solutions to the problems of universalism and the adaptive nature of art proposed by the author of the discussed book.

Habitat Selection and the Evolutionary Aesthetics of Landscape Preference

This paper analyses the processes of habitat selection and human landscape preferences from an evolutionary perspective, with the aim of demonstrating how humans aesthetically choose, assess and aspire to live in an environment in which our species and our ancestors evolved in during the pre-Neolithic period. We present the basics of evolutionary aesthetics, then analyse the process of habitat selection and the most influential evolutionary theories of landscape preference. Finally, we refer to applied empirical research and point out that a comprehensive evolutionary theory must also take into account the psychological and cultural elements that affect human well-being.