Overview

Art and Adaptability argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. The book covers relevant areas from great ape intelligence, hominin evolution, Stone Age tools, Paleolithic culture and art forms, to neurobiology. We use material and art objects, whether painting or sculpture, to modify our own and other people’s thoughts so as to affect behavior. We don’t just make judgments about mental states; we create objects about which we make judgments in which mental states are inherent. Moreover, we make judgments about these objects to facilitate how we explore the minds and feelings of others. The argument is that it’s not so much art because of theory of mind but art as theory of mind.

Full Product Details

Author:   Gregory F. Tague
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   52
Weight:   0.477kg
ISBN:  

9789004354524

ISBN 10:   9004354522
Pages:   204
Publication Date:   23 November 2017
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Simplified Radiations of Select Primate Species Simplified Radiations of Select Hominin Species The Long Pleistocene Introduction: Setting Boundaries 1 Intelligence: Communication and Theory of Mind Great Ape Intelligence and Communication Symbolic Communication and Consciousness Inter-Subjectivity and Evolution Great Ape Theory of Mind Human Theory of Mind Artificial Intelligence The Anthropocentric Attitude Chapter One Dovetail 2 Culture: The Adapted Mind Human Network: Scope and Scale Symbolic Culture Culture and the Adapted Mind Gene/Culture Co-Evolution Culture and Social Selection Culture and Epigenetics Mind Sharing Chapter Two Dovetail 3 Adaptive Functions: Selection and the Human Psyche Adaptation and Natural Selection Defined Phenomenal Consciousness Adaptive Problems and Questions Darwin and Natural Selection Darwin and Sexual Selection Selection and Tools Cognition, Cooperation, and Extended Evolution Making Special Pleistocene Landscape Preferences Can We Define Art? Neanderthals and Art Cave Painting and Superstition Art and Altered States of Consciousness Cave Art and Images Art and the Human Psyche Beauty, the Brain, and the Body Chapter Three Dovetail 4 Objections: Philosophy and Byproducts Philosophy and Art Pinker's Cheesecake for the Mind An Art Instinct? Corrective to Art as Sexual Selection Humanology Social Selection Over Sexual Selection? The Biology of Art as Speculative? Two Hypotheses Explanatory Dilemma Chapter Four Dovetail 5 Neurobiology and Cognition: Consciousness and Representation Artistic Behavior and the Social Brain The Subject of Aesthetics Orienting Creative Cognition Art, Ambiguity, and Making Meaning Representation and Metarepresentation Bodily and Cultural Consciousness Line or Color? Seeing Reality Abstractly Knowledge, Beauty, and Neutrality From Discontinuity to Essence Brain Sight and Insight Beauty and Cognitive Emotions Ritual Art Chapter Five Dovetail Conclusion: The Arts and Sciences Bibliography Index

Reviews

The text is said to offer a novel hypothesis on the evolutionary roots of art, based on theory of mind. In itself, this proposal is compelling... - Larissa Mendoza Straffon, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society The general argument of the book is interesting and sound, and is well developed with different layer of explanation.... The manuscript fits within an upcoming and ongoing tendency to study the origins of art from a cognitive perspective that specifically emphasizes theory of mind...doing so from a similarly interdisciplinary point of view. As such, the contents are both innovative and fitting within actual developments in this field. - Eveline Seghers, Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies, Ghent University

Author Information

Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. (1998), New York University, is Professor of English and founder and senior developer of The Evolutionary Studies Collaborative at St. Francis College, N.Y. Recent, relevant books include Evolution and Human Culture (Brill|Rodopi, 2016) and Making Mind: Moral Sense and Consciousness (Rodopi, 2014).

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