The Art Instinct_ Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution - Denis Dutton [140]
Dissanayake makes a good case for the social value of ceremony, and therefore participatory arts (1992), pp. 43–63. In her latest book, Art and Intimacy (2000), she persuasively argues for a continuous line that leads from mother/infant interactions to the fully developed social arts of the human race.
The strongest proponent of group selection in evolutionary theory today is David Sloan Wilson, in Darwin’s Cathedral (2002), Evolution for Everyone (2007), and the book he coauthored with the philosopher Elliott Sober, Unto Others (1998). While I have reservations about applying group selection theory to explain the existence of the arts, as a general principle in evolutionary theory I regard group selection as very important—indeed, crucial to explain the origins of sociality and cooperation. The opera rehearsal description is in Tolstoy (1960), pp.
10–15. Pinker’s discussion of “gluey meta phors” is in (2007); the quotation is at p. 177. I believe Rubinstein told anecdotes like this on many occasions. I am reporting from my memory of a version of it recounted in a radio interview years ago. I have heard the same story attributed to Frank Sinatra.
See Collingwood (1938), pp. 15–41.
Brian Boyd (2009) is especially acute in his analysis of the attentiongrabbing character of the arts in general and stories in par tic u lar.
Nussbaum (1997); Posner (1997), quotation from p. 5; Hassan (2006), p. 225.
See Simonton (1999), pp. 78–79. I have written a long review of this book [w/s denisdutton .com genius simonton]
In his “Darwinian Aesthetics” entry in the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Randy Thornhill (1998) lumps together a whole range of evolved responses to stimuli—sugar, language skill, lovely bodies, status, savannas, youthful looks, etc.—as “aesthetic adaptations” that induce plea sure. He quotes Donald Symons saying “Beauty is in the adaptations of the beholder.” Art for Thornhill has “subliminal” utility, with “unconsciously perceived cues” that have an evolutionary source (p. 557). His rhetoric sounds almost Freudian, but his account is far too crude to begin to analyze complex, serious works of art.
Murray (2003), pp. 415–25; Smidt (1990).
Kundera (1984), p. 251. Over many years, the Franklin Mint has produced and sold what must amount to a small mountain—dare I say, a trea sure trove—of kitsch, pitched at buyers in the most pretentious language possible. See [w/s franklin mint] and click on individual objects for a laugh.
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