beauty changes everything
Guest post by P. Winston Fettner Cuteness, it seems, is more important than it's been given credit for. It's place in evolutionary aesthetics is essential, not only for its role in developing Darwinian and empirical approaches to aesthetics, but also in the application of evolutionary aesthetics to ethics, even suggesting a contribution to the ethics … Continue reading On Cuteness
How aesthetics impacts our decision-making is often ignored or overlooked. Some researchers, for example, have claimed that our feelings (i.e., aesthetic responses) account for 85 percent of our decision-making for retail purchases. Another example from clothing helps to illustrate this point further. In Everyday Aesthetics, Yuriko Saito describes how natural fibers, such as wool and … Continue reading Ugliness and Climate Solutions
Guest post by Meredith Drees In Kant’s Critique of Judgment, he states that “sublime is what even to be able to think proves that the mind has a power surpassing any standard of sense” (25:250). [1] My aim in this essay is to argue that experiences of sublimity give us a glimpse of morality and … Continue reading Sublimity as a Symbol of Moral Dignity
Every year, thousands of people flock to the first public beach in America, Revere Beach (est. 1896) for the International Sand-Sculpting Festival. These are wonderfully complicated works that sculptors create in a short time, and they don't last very long. Shortly after the festival is over, the sand sculptures disappear. “SHELLter" by Jonathan (Jobi) Bouchard … Continue reading Fleeting Beauty
The animal only fashions things according to the standards and needs of the species it belongs to, whereas man knows how to produce according to the measure of every species and knows everywhere how to apply its inherent standard to the object: thus man also fashions things according to the laws of beauty.Karl Marx Aesthetics … Continue reading Agriculture and Aesthetics
Natural selection is the process organisms adapt to their environment to give them a better chance at survival. Though he proposed and defended this theory, Charles Darwin did not believe it could explain everything. That's why he also proposed sexual selection, by which he meant that females choose the most appealing males and males evolve … Continue reading Extravagant Evolution
It has become increasingly common to use the word 'aesthetics' when really talking about art. While it is true that many works of art are beautiful or have other aesthetic properties, most people claim to deny that aesthetics is a necessary component of art. One just has to think about Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917); he claimed … Continue reading Aesthetics Versus Philosophy of Art
When gas prices rise, people become less inclined to simply go for a drive that doesn't have a specific purpose other than its own delight. But one kind of drive that doesn't serve any practical purposes that people regularly take (each fall) is a trip to see autumn foliage. People from suburbs and cities alike … Continue reading Leaf-Peeping: The Search for the Aesthetic