Neuroaesthetics: Maladies and Remedies

Abstract

Some neuroaestheticians have adopted a strongly reductionistic view of the arts and sought to supplant scholarship about the arts with an understanding of their evolutionary and neuropsychological underpinnings. I use the work of several neuroaestheticians to provide examples of four problematic tendencies that beset this approach: (1) assume that a domain-general system encodes the affective value of works of art; (2) oversimplify or disregard art history and scholarship about the arts; (3) apply laboratory findings to explain unique works of art, and (4) use widespread preferences to account for works of art. I then diagnose the ailment underlying these tendencies: the denial of autonomous standing to the production and interpretation of the arts, and suggest remedies. I end with an example of research that shows how neuroscientific research can successfully addresses an important and long-standing aesthetic question.