We propose a model which argues that aesthetics is based on biosemiotic processes and introduces the non-anthropomorphic aesthetics. In parallel with habit-taking, which is responsible for generating semiotic regularities, there is another process, the semiotic fitting, which is responsible for generating aesthetic relations. Habit by itself is not good or bad, it is good or bad because of semiotic fitting. Defining the beautiful as the perfect semiotic fitting corresponds to the common conceptualisation of the aesthetic as well as extends it (...) over all umwelten. Perfection is not omnipotence, it only means the omnirelational semiotic fitting in the umwelt, or harmony with context. The process that presents something to be perceived as beautiful is of the same kind as the semiotic process that builds something to become beautiful. The argument is based on the observation that learning has a tendency towards perfection, until it is grounded. Semiosis is usually biased towards semiotic fitting, which stepwise leads towards perfection, and thus towards beauty. Such a general semiotic model implies that beauty is species-specific; that it is not limited to the sphere of emotions; that the reduction of the evolution of aesthetic features to sexual selection is false; and that humans should learn the aesthetics of other beings in order to avoid destroying valuable biocoenoses. (shrink)

Images share a common feature with all phenomena of imagination, since they make us aware of what is not present or what is fictional and not existent at all. From this perspective, the philosophical approach of Kendall Lewis Walton—born in 1939 and active since the 1960s at the University of Michigan—is perhaps one of the most notable contributions to image theory. Walton is an authoritative figure within the tradition of analytical aesthetics. His contributions have had a considerable influence on a (...) broad range of topics, such as the role of categories in the understanding of the arts (Walton, “Categories of Art”. Philosophical Review, 79(3): 334–367, 1970), the ambiguous nature of emotions in the experience of fictional stories (Walton, “Fearing Fictions”. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1): 5–25, 1978), the transparency of photographic images compared to other depictions (Walton, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism”. Noûs, 18(1): 67–72, 1984) and, above all, the development of a general theory of fiction as imaginative activity. His 1990 book Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts collects and re-elaborates articles Walton published on the subject since the 1970s. Though he does not attempt to give a definitive answer for what imagination is, Walton thoroughly investigates its role in all cases of representational works, describing depictions as a specific case of “make-believe” activity: images, in short, are specific props of a visual and perceptual “make-believe” game. (shrink)

Are there any theoretical resources – conceptual, lexical or argumentative ones – in the interdisciplinary debate on the evolutionary origins of the arts that can help us go beyond the traditional autonomistic conception of art, in favour of a more continuist and inclusive interpretation of human artistic practices? The paper examines the different voices in the debate, against the background of a cultural naturalist attitude inspired by John Dewey, by focusing on those contributions which can be interpreted in non-reductionist, anti-foundationalist (...) and pluralistic terms. What are particularly valuable are those positions emphasizing the phatic, communicative dimension of artifying behaviours in connection with the acute structural exposure of human organisms to their natural and naturally social environment. (shrink)

The concept of homology is the most solid theoretical basis elaborated by the morphological thinking during its history. The enucleation of some general criteria for the interpretation of homology is today a fundamental tool for life sciences, and for restoring their own opening to the question of qualitative innovation that arose so powerfully in the original Darwinian project. The aim of this paper is to verify the possible uses of the concept of compositional homology in order to provide of an (...) adequate understanding of the dynamics of creative thinking. (shrink)

This article considers an apparent tension between, on the one hand, a widespread belief among literature teachers that the appreciation of a poem involves an experience of form-content inseparability and, on the other hand, these same teachers’ use of paraphrase to encourage appreciation. Using Terrence Deacon’s model of art experience, I argue that the tensions of this ‘paraphrase paradox’ mirror tensions inherent in poetic experience. Section II draws upon work by Rafe McGregor, Peter Lamarque, and Peter Kivy to frame an (...) approach to the form-content distinction, and to offer a brief overview of the paraphrase paradox. Sections III-IV summarize Deacon’s model of aesthetic experience, and argue that this model implies that poetic experience both triggers an impulse towards paraphrase, and frustrates this impulse. Section V looks at implications for the poetry teacher’s attempts to navigate the paraphrase paradox. Section VI tests these implications through an analysis of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Faith Healing’. (shrink)

Anjan Chatterjee has promoted an analogy between the Bengalese finch and the human artist. With reduced selective pressure from females due to its domestication, the male finch’s song has become more elaborate. Similarly, art’s lack of a practical function facilitates the creative generativity shown by artists. I argue that this analogy is flawed on both sides. Only recently has some art been regarded as non-functional. And the elaboration of the finch’s song is an effect of female selection under the conditions (...) of domestication. (shrink)