Proximate and ultimate factors in evolutionary thinking on art

Art is often described as an evolutionary adaptation, but not enough thought has been given to arguments in support of this claim. This can lead to a variety of explanatory issues, such as unjustly describing artmaking as an adaptation, not recognizing its complex nature, and its potentially even more complex evolutionary trajectory. This paper addresses one subject in particular, which is the conceptual distinction between ultimate and proximate levels of explanation. More specifically, this brief analysis investigates to what extent functional, adaptive explanations and proximate mechanisms might be confused, leading to strong adaptationist claims that may not be in accordance with the available evidence. In this paper, two hypotheses are discussed from this perspective, and it is argued that both of them, upon closer and more extensive analysis, might not stand the adaptationist test

Aesthetic values in science

Scientists often use aesthetic values in the evaluation and choice of theories. Aesthetic values are not only regarded as leading to practically more useful theories but are often taken to stand in a special epistemic relation to the truth of a theory such that the aesthetic merit of a theory is evidence of its truth. This paper explores what aesthetic considerations influence scientists' reasoning, how such aesthetic values relate to the utility of a scientific theory, and how one can justify the epistemic role for such values. The paper examines ways in which the link between beauty and truth can be defended, the challenges facing such accounts, and explores alternative epistemic roles for aesthetic values in scientific practice

Dante's 'Strangeness': The Commedia and the Late Twentieth-Century Debate on the Literary Canon

A reflection on Dante and the literary canon may appear tautological since nowadays his belonging to the canon seems a self-evident matter of fact and an indisputable truth. It is for this very reason, though, that a paradigmatic role has been conferred on Dante in the contemporary debate both by those who consider the canon a stable structure based on inner aesthetic values and by those who see it as a cultural and social construction. For instance, Harold Bloom suggests that ‘Dante invented our modern idea of the canonical’, and Edward Said, in his reading of Auerbach, seems to imply that Dante provided foundations for what we call literature tout court. While his influence on other poets never ceased, the story of Dante’s explicit canonization through the centuries revolved around the same critical points we are still discussing today: his anti-classical ‘strangeness’ in language and style, the trouble he occasions in genre hierarchies and distinctions, and the vastness of the philosophical and theological knowledge embraced by the Commedia (and, as a consequence, the relationship between literature and other realms of human experience). Dante’s canonicity is also evinced by the ceaseless debates that he has inspired and the many cultural tensions of which he is the focus. What I will try to do in the next few pages is to reflect on the features that make the Commedia central both to the arguments of the defenders of the aesthetic approach, such as Bloom and Steiner, and to the political claims of the so-called ‘culture of complaint’.Federica Pich, ‘Dante’s ‘Strangeness’: The Commedia and the late Twentieth-Century Debate on the Literary Canon’, in Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati, Fabio Camilletti, and Fabian Lampart, Cultural Inquiry, 2 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2011), pp. 21–35 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-02_02

Wilderness Beauty: A Means to Resolve Volitional Doubt

Doubt is often part of Christian spiritual life. Matured doubt will influence the will (the volition) so as to keep the Christian doubter from acting like a Christian or even desiring the Christian life. This essay seeks to construct a theory designed to engage and help resolve volitional doubt by use of wilderness beauty. This theory incorporates three areas of study—Land and Leisure Management, Abraham Maslow’s metamotivation theory, and Jonathan Edwards\u27 aesthetic theology—to demonstrate the uniqueness and usefulness of wilderness beauty for resolving volitional doubt. Subsequent to the construction of the theory, practical suggestions for its application are given

Piękno, sztuka i elementy edukacji estetycznej w pismach polskich neotomistów dwudziestolecia międzywojennego

W poglądach neotomistów piękno uznawane jest za własność bytu, postrzegane jest jako właściwość rzeczywistości i ludzkich wytworów, w tym sztuki. Można je odnajdywać w sposobach ludzkiego postępowania, w tradycji kultury pod postacią harmonii, doskonałości lub blasku. Badanie piękna podlega naczelnym regułom badań w metafizyce. Piękno jest istotnym czynnikiem rozwoju osobowości: podnosi i uszlachetnia. W umiłowanie piękna wpisany jest wypoczynek, wytchnienie niezbędne dla rozwoju człowieka. Sztuka sama w sobie nie podlega cnocie roztropności, nie dąży, by człowieka czynić lepszym, jej chodzi o dzieło. W fakcie tym neotomiści dostrzegają konflikt między moralnością a sztuką; niebezpieczeństwo nie zachodzi jednak, gdy artysta posiada etykę "na własność", wówczas bezwiednie tworzy dzieła etyczne. Sztuka posiada bez wątpienia wielkie znaczenie społeczne i powinna spełniać doniosłą misję społeczną przez edukację estetyczną, poprzez udostępnienie jak najszerszym warstwom ludzkości piękna, prawdy i dobra.Beauty, a property of existence in the Neo-Thomistic view, allows one to perceive it as a property of reality and of human artefacts, including art. It can be found in human behaviour and in the tradition of culture in the form of harmony, perfection and brilliance. An examination of beauty should be subject to the principal rules of study in metaphysics. Beauty is an important factor in the development of personality: it raises and ennobles. The love of beauty incorporates rest and respite, which are necessary for human development. Not being subject to the virtue of prudence, art itself does not seek to make man better, because it is all about creating a work of art. Neo-Thomists see a confl ict between morality and art in this fact; the risk does not occur when the artist takes ethics "as his or her own". In this case, he or she unknowingly creates ethical works or art. Art is undoubtedly of great social importance and it should fulfi l an important social mission through aesthetic education by making available to the widest possible group of people truth, beauty and goodness