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  1. A Cognitive Approach to the Earliest Art.Johan de Smedt & Helen de Cruz - 2011 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (4):379-389.
    This paper takes a cognitive perspective to assess the significance of some Late Palaeolithic artefacts (sculptures and engraved objects) for philosophicalconcepts of art. We examine cognitive capacities that are necessary to produceand recognize objects that are denoted as art. These include the ability toattribute and infer design (design stance), the ability to distinguish between themateriality of an object and its meaning (symbol-mindedness), and an aesthetic sensitivity to some perceptual stimuli. We investigate to what extent thesecognitive processes played a role in (...)
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  • Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds? Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Aesthetics, Fiction, and the Arts.John Tooby & Leda Cosmides - 2001 - Substance 30 (1/2):6.
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  • On the origins of narrative.Michelle Scalise Sugiyama - 1996 - Human Nature 7 (4):403-425.
    Stories consist largely of representations of the human social environment. These representations can be used to influence the behavior of others (consider, e.g., rumor, propaganda, public relations, advertising). Storytelling can thus be seen as a transaction in which the benefit to the listener is information about his or her environment, and the benefit to the storyteller is the elicitation of behavior from the listener that serves the former’s interests. However, because no two individuals have exactly the same fitness interests, we (...)
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  • Toward a consilient study of literature.Steven Pinker - 2007 - Philosophy and Literature 31 (1):162-178.
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  • Literature and Evolution.Paul Hernadi - 2001 - Substance 30 (1/2):55.
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  • The art instinct: beauty, pleasure, & human evolution.Denis Dutton - 2009 - New York: Bloomsbury Press.
    Introduction -- Landscape and longing -- Art and human nature -- What is art? -- But they don't have our concept of art -- Art and natural selection -- The uses of fiction -- Art and human self-domestication -- Intention, forgery, dada : three aesthetic problems -- The contingency of aesthetic values -- Greatness in the arts.
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  • A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos.Alex Argyros - 1991 - Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
    Theorizing about the place of human culture in cosmic evolution.
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  • Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and why.Ellen Dissanayake - 1995
    "Dissanayake argues that art was central to human evolutionary adaptation and that the aesthetic faculty is a basic psychological component of every human being. In her view, art is intimately linked to the origins of religious practices and to ceremonies of birth, death, transition, and transcendence. Drawing on her years in Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and Papua New Guinea, she gives examples of painting, song, dance, and drama as behaviors that enable participants to grasp and reinforce what is important to their (...)
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  • The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution.Stephen Davies - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Stephen Davies presents a fascinating exploration of the idea that art, and our aesthetic sensibilities more generally, should be understood as an element in human evolution. He asks: Do animals have aesthetics? Do our aesthetic preferences have prehistoric roots? Is art universal? What is the biological role of aesthetic and artistic behaviour?
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  • Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature.Joseph Carroll - 2005 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (3):298-300.
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