Beauty, Aesthetic Experience, and Emotional Affective States

Andrej Démuth

Beauty, Aesthetic Experience, and Emotional Affective States

by Andrej Démuth (Author)

, Monographs, 200 Pages
Theology & Philosophy

The monograph is focused on the subjectivity of aesthetic experience and the problem of rational interpretation of emotionality. The text studies why does an aesthetic experience exist, what is its content and what is its informational role and structure? Has beauty any cognitive value? Can we analyse beauty? In what sense we can think about the information content of aesthetic experience? The second topic of the book is a cognitive role of emotionality and its research. Why we have emotions? What can they tell us about yourself and about the world?

The methodology of the study is designed as a phenomenological research of subjective experience that is combined with the newest results in Cognitive science research.

Contents

Cover
Title
Copyright
About the author
About the book
Contents
The Issue of Emotionality and Aesthetic Experience as its Specific Example
Part One: Forgotten Emotionality and the Issues in Its Research
1. Chapter 1. Suppression of the Issue of Emotionality and Its Causes
  1. 1.1. Metaphysical Status of Emotions
  2. 1.2. The Epistemic Issue of Emotions
  3. 1.3. Subjectivist Issue of Emotionality
2. Chapter 2. The Significance and Ontic Priority of the Emotionality Issue
  1. 2.1. The Fundamentality of Emotionality
  2. 2.2. Ontic Priority of Emotionality
  3. 2.3. Ontological Priority of Emotionality
3. Chapter 3. Aesthetic Experience as an Example of Emotionality
  1. 3.1 Aesthetic Experience Has Somatic Manifestations
  2. 3.2. Aesthetic Experience Is Perceived Subjectively
  3. 3.3 Aesthetic Experience Motivates Our Actions
  4. 3.4. Expression of Aesthetic Experience
  5. 3.5. Cognitive Function of Aesthetic Experience
Part Two: Preparatory Analysis for the Investigation of Aesthetic Experience
1. Chapter 4. The Exposition and Structure of Issue of Beauty and Aesthetic Experience
  1. 4.1. The Historical Approaches to the Investigation of Beauty – Prelude
    1. 4.1.1. Idealism
    2. 4.1.2. Classical Concepts of Beauty
    3. 4.1.3. Subjectivist Approach
    4. 4.1.4. Beauty as a Value without Purpose
    5. 4.1.5. Aesthetics as an Independent Philosophical Discipline
  2. 4.2. Contemporary Approaches to the Investigation of Aesthetic Experience
    1. 4.2.1. Phenomenology of Beauty
    2. 4.2.2. Experimental and Empiric Aesthetics
    3. 4.2.3. The Psychology of Beauty
    4. 4.2.4. Evolutionary Aesthetics
    5. 4.2.5. Neurophenomenology and Neuroaesthetics
    6. 4.2.6. Cultural Anthropology and Comparative Aesthetics
    7. 4.2.7. Computational Aesthetics
  3. 4.3. Terminological Definition of Research
    1. 4.3.1. Beauty Is Not Art
    2. 4.3.2. Aesthetic Experience Is Not Beauty
    3. 4.3.3. What Is an Experience?
    4. 4.3.4. Aesthetic Experience
  4. 4.4. Structural Issues of Research
    1. 4.4.1. What Do We Like? – What Features Are Common to Beautiful Things?
    2. 4.4.2. What Is the Course of an Aesthetic Experience? – What Do We Experience in It?
    3. 4.4.3. What Is Aesthetic Experience about?
  5. 4.5. Methods Used
    1. 4.5.1. The Phenomenological Approach
    2. 4.5.2. The Cognitive-Scientific Approach
    3. 4.5.3. The Hermeneutic Approach
    4. 4.5.4. The Evolutionary Approach
  6. 4.6. Preliminary Research Outline
The Analysis of Beauty and Aesthetic Experience from the First and Third Person Point of View
Part Three: A Phenomenological-Existential Analysis of Aesthetic Experience from the First Person Point of View
1. Chapter 5. The Content of the Aesthetic Experience
  1. 5.1. Husserl – Aesthetic Experience Is Somatic
  2. 5.2. Heidegger – Aesthetic Experience Is Understanding
    1. 5.2.1. What Do “Beautiful Things” Have in Common?
    2. 5.2.2. Liking
      1. 5.2.2.1. The Temporality of Aesthetic Experience – Merleau-Ponty Interlude
      2. 5.2.2.2. Aesthetic Experience Enriches
    3. 5.2.4. What Matters to Us in Experiencing Beauty?
Part Four: Aesthetic Experience from a Neuroscientific Perspective
1. Chapter 6. Inside the Brain
  1. 6.1. What Do Various Aesthetic Experiences Have in Common?
    1. 6.1.1. The Brain Centres Active during Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Assessment – the Neurobiology of Beauty
      1. 6.1.1.1. Structural Level
        
        6.1.1.1.1. The Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex
        
        6.1.1.1.2. The Insular Cortex
        
        6.1.1.1.3. The Nucleus Accumbens
        
        6.1.1.1.4. Other Areas of Activity
      2. 6.1.1.2. Cell Level
        
        6.1.1.2.1. Biochemical Correlates of Aesthetic Experience
        
        6.1.1.2.2. Dopamine
        
        6.1.1:2.3. Opioids
        
        6.1.1.2.4. Oxytocin
        
        6.1.1.2.5. Vasopressin
      3. 6.1.1.3. Conclusions about Neurobiochemical Intersections
  2. 6.2. What Happens in Aesthetic Experience?
    1. 6.2.1. Pleasant Feelings as Reward – Rolls’s Theory of Emotions
    2. 6.2.3. Evolutionary Teleology
    3. 6.2.4. Social Aspects of Evolutionary Experience
    4. 6.2.5. Fashion
    5. 6.2.6. Commonality or Originality – the Problem of Aesthetic Experience
  3. 6.3. More Distant Areas Involved in Reward System
    1. 6.3.1. Schillerian Interlude – Correlations between Beauty and Goodness
    2. 6.3.2. The Beauty Dilemma
  4. 6.4. What Matters to Us in Aesthetic Experience from an Evolutionary Perspective?
    1. 6.4.1. (Beauty) Reward Stems from Enjoyment
    2. 6.4.2. Reward Systems from Existence (1)
    3. 6.4.3. A Short Interlude – Sexual Behavioural Strategies or a Lesson on Game Theory as an Insight into the Purpose of Attractiveness
    4. 6.4.4. Reward Systems from Existence (2)
    5. 6.4.5. Existence of the Line vs. Existence of the Individual?
    6. 6.4.6. The Importance of Beauty to an Individual
    7. 6.4.7. Beauty as a Search for a Better and Superior World
An Attempt to Summarize the Meaning of Emotion and an Outline of the Philosophy of Emotionality from a Second Person Point of View
Part Five: The Cognitive Aspects of Emotions and the Importance of Their Expression
1. Chapter 7. Why do we have emotions?
  1. 7.1.1. Emotions Draw Attention to the Information That Is Important for the Subject
  2. 7.1.2. Emotions and Drawing Attention to Our Own State
  3. 7.1.3. Art as the Expression of the (In)Visible
2. 7.2. Philosophy of Emotionality from the Second-Person Perspective
3. Chapter 8. Conclusion
References
About Author
Series index

Pages:

200

ISBN (HARDBACK):

9783631775059 (Active)

ISBN (EPUB):

9783631782729 (Active)

ISBN (PDF):

9783631782712 (Active)

DOI:

10.3726/b15673

Language:

English

Keywords:

aesthetics, Philosophy, Psychology , Cognitive Science, Emotionality

Published:

Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2019. 200 S.

Andrej Démuth studied philosophy and psychology. He is a professor of philosophy and the Head of the Department of Philosophy at the Trnava University. He is the author of many books and articles on cognition and the relationship between reflected and non reflected knowledge and he regularly gives invited lectures at universities in Slovakia and abroad. His research focuses on modern philosophy, epistemology and cognitive studies.

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Beauty, Aesthetic Experience, and Emotional Affective States

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