Lorenzo Bartalesi
Research project
Rethinking Evolutionary Aesthetics beyond Nature and Culture: a Darwinian Perspective
Project summary
The state of the art in Evolutionary Aesthetics is today unsatisfactory. The dominant model has neglected to consider Darwin’s original aesthetic theory and the crucial role that this latter plays in the architecture of evolutionary theory. In addition, Evolutionary Aesthetics reflects the limitations of the reductionist approach of contemporary Evolutionary Psychology focused on the concepts of gene, on the exclusivity of natural selection, and on a notion of aesthetic mostly restricted to the sexual dimension. Following Darwin’s suggestion in theNotebooks(1838-1840), in particular for the relationship established between repeated actions (habits), brain modifications and the acquisition of instincts, we need an ecological and interactionist model of the aesthetic behaviours. The aim of this project is show that the hypothesis for the development of the aesthetic instincts given by Darwin presents correspondences with the latest outcomes of contemporary evolutionary research, currently involved in extending the paradigm of the Modern synthesis, and could be very helpful in order to rethink the evolution of aesthetic beyond the dualism between innate dispositions and cultural development.
