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Method in philosophical aesthetics: the challenge from the sciences

哲学美学的方法：来自科学的挑战

基本信息

批准号：
AH/G012644/1
负责人：
Gregory Currie
金额：
$ 71.25万
依托单位：
University of Nottingham
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2009
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2009 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FG012644%2F1
关键词：
Method philosophical aesthetics challenge sciences

项目摘要

Artworks, craft products, and landscapes are said to produce aesthetic pleasures when we encounter them. Some of them are said to give us insights into deep issues of meaning, value, personality and character. But on what basis can we say that a painting or a play gives us psychological insight? Against what standard are such claims to be tested? How can I know that my judgement of a work really is a response to its aesthetic features? Aesthetics in the Anglo-American tradition has generally assumed that the relevant standards are those set by the intuitions of reflective, self-conscious agents who thoroughly grasp the relevant concepts. It is not much of a simplification to say that philosophers ask themselves 'How does it seem to me that I respond to art works and other aesthetic objects?'; their answers provide the data for a philosophical theory of art and the aesthetic.Empirical research in the sciences of mind and related disciplines exposes analytical philosophy's reliance on introspection and intuition as suspect. These results have challenged and transformed a number of areas of philosophical research (e.g., philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics). This project examines the methods used in the kind of aesthetic theorizing that developed in the English-speaking academy over the last century to see where its methods may be similarly challenged by scientific work.As suggested above, aesthetics has tended to rely on intuitions about beauty, insight, value and meaning; it is not clear to what extent these intuitions are widely shared. And there is reason to think what we now lump together as an 'aesthetic response' is the convergence of distinct evolutionary forces--for example, sexual selection (which determines much of our response to physical beauty) and the evolution of habitat preferences (which underwrite our responses to landscapes). The whole notion of the aesthetic may prove to be a crude amalgam of separate factors.Further, Anglo-American aesthetics has tended to accept without serious question certain assumptions about human psychology. It accepts the idea that the value of art lies partly in its capacity to reveal truths about motive and character. But social psychological evidence suggests that our assumptions about character are flawed. Aesthetics tends to assume also that the judgements about art made by suitably informed and prepared agents represent rational responses to the qualities of those works--qualities which we are capable of consciously identifying as the basis of our judgements. Again, recent scientific experiments suggest that aesthetic judgement is significantly affected by such factors as price and familiarity. Other work in cognitive psychology and linguistics claims to discover processes which are active in determining our aesthetic responses to things; for example, motor processes in the brain seem to be important for appreciating metaphors of movement and change, while aspects of verbal style may be explicable in terms of such scientific notions as 'cognitive load'. These theories and discoveries pose various challenges: How can narrative art illuminate character if character is a myth? How secure is autonomy if our judgments are so easily manipulable? How useful are the standard categories of aesthetic description if they are not responsive to what science tells us are the underlying mechanisms governing our reactions?The project situates itself critically in relation both to those who see traditional aesthetics as insulated from empirical work and those who regard scientific work as undermining its humanist aspirations. We do not begin from the assumption that traditional notions of art, beauty and aesthetic judgement are to be abandoned; we do not seek an entirely 'naturalistic' aesthetics. We look instead to examine the proper boundaries and overlaps between reflective and empiracle approaches to the arts.

据说，当我们遇到艺术品、工艺品和风景时，它们会产生审美乐趣。据说其中一些能让我们深入了解意义、价值、个性和性格等深层问题。但是，我们凭什么说一幅画或一出戏给了我们心理上的洞察力呢？用什么标准来检验这种说法呢？我怎么知道我对一件作品的判断是对它的审美特征的反应呢？英美传统的美学通常认为，相关的标准是由那些彻底掌握相关概念的反思的、自我意识的主体的直觉所设定的。哲学家问自己：“在我看来，我对艺术作品和其他审美对象的反应是什么？”';他们的回答为艺术和美学的哲学理论提供了数据。心灵科学和相关学科的实证研究揭示了分析哲学对内省和直觉的依赖是可疑的。这些结果挑战并改变了哲学研究的许多领域（例如，心灵哲学、认识论和伦理学）。这个项目考察了在上个世纪在英语学术界发展起来的美学理论中所使用的方法，看看它的方法在哪里可能受到科学工作的类似挑战。如上所述，美学倾向于依赖于对美、洞察力、价值和意义的直觉;目前还不清楚这些直觉在多大程度上被广泛接受。我们有理由认为，我们现在统称为“审美反应”的是不同进化力量的融合-例如，性选择（它决定了我们对身体美的反应）和栖息地偏好的进化（它保证了我们对景观的反应）。美学的整个概念可能被证明是各种不同因素的粗糙混合物，而且，英美美学倾向于毫无疑问地接受某些关于人类心理的假设。它接受这样一种观点，即艺术的价值部分在于它揭示动机和性格真相的能力。但社会心理学证据表明，我们对性格的假设是有缺陷的。美学还倾向于假定，由适当知情和准备的代理人对艺术作出的判断代表了对这些作品的品质的理性反应-我们能够有意识地识别为我们判断的基础的品质。最近的科学实验再次表明，审美判断受到价格和熟悉程度等因素的显著影响。认知心理学和语言学的其他工作声称发现了在决定我们对事物的审美反应中起作用的过程;例如，大脑中的运动过程似乎对欣赏运动和变化的隐喻很重要，而言语风格的各个方面可以用“认知负荷”等科学概念来解释。这些理论和发现提出了各种挑战：如果人物是一个神话，叙事艺术如何阐明人物？如果我们的判断如此容易被操纵，那么自主性又有多安全呢？如果美学描述的标准范畴对科学告诉我们的支配我们反应的潜在机制没有反应，那么它们还有什么用处呢？该项目的立场是批判性的，既与那些认为传统美学与经验工作绝缘的人有关，也与那些认为科学工作破坏其人文主义愿望的人有关。我们并不开始于这样一种假设，即传统的艺术、美和审美判断的观念应该被抛弃;我们并不寻求一种完全“自然主义”的美学。相反，我们将审视反思性和抽象性艺术方法之间的适当界限和重叠。