... Pinker’s underlying argument is that due to a confluence of genetic attributes, not through a simple “art gene” but through a contingent intermeshing in our genetic wiring, human beings are predisposed to take pleasure in symmetry and proportion, harmony and progression, structured drama and linear narrative.
Perhaps they take pleasure in them, not because of "a confluence of genetic attributes," but because they are inherently satisfying.
"Any plausible philosophy of art must of course start with the biological/genetic foundation of the creative impulse." I confess I don't immediately see why this is necessarily so. I understand that the prehensile thumb was crucial for developing human artistry and I note the connection between the nature of our tongues and the development of language, but while these may be sine qua nons for the exercise of the creative impulse, I don't see that they - or other purely biological factors - account for it. The whole underlying premise here seems to be that we are fundamentally biochemical machines and nothing more. And that premise seems to me undemonstrated. And I don't see why a plausible philosophy of art cannot start with the works of art themselves.
I must say Frank that I found this Denis Dutton Google Talk to be quite convincing:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Di86RqDL4&feature=PlayList&p=933928E1BC1D09A4&playnext=1&index=31
especially the part about imaginative fiction being a safe way to test-drive new ideas...
Hi Nigel,
ReplyDeleteI just got Dutton's book, but won't be reading it until probably late next week. In the meantime, I have discovered Gaston Bachelard, who said that "Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need," and that "Man is an imagining being." It's going to take a good bit to convince me that positing a cause in the distant past and trying to show how that cause might be manifest in something that took place much later is a better way of getting at a cause than starting with the something that has taken place much later - and proximate to us - and working your way back.