Taken in the larger sense "neuroaesthetics" is the study of the neurological basis of perception, and of course, useful for medical and other reasons. In the sense you mean - studying art and beauty - it has been a going discipline for a long time (at least since the late 1980's), with its own journals, conferences, etc. Definitely publishable - anything that begins with "neuro'" has been publishable in philosophy for a long time (cf. "neuroethics"). For me, I can't even imagine, much less have I seen, a theory or established claim in this field that strikes me as philosophically interesting. It doesn't mean there is nothing to discover - I'm sure that if the "rule of thirds" in photography is a good general principle for creating attractive images, there is some neurological background that helps explain this. But I am interested in the phenomenon itself, how it relates to other aspects of photographic art, why it is a general but not universal guide, etc. The answer to these questions is never, for me, going to lie in neurological facts. Add to that the fact that the alleged neurological basis of any mental phenomenon is almost always defeasible (cf "mirror neurons"). There may be a neurological basis for both Kantian and utilitarian ethics too, but Thompson's study of the trolley problem gives us insights into our ethical intuitions in a way that I can't see any neurological study coming up with. I've read half a dozen books on consciousness by cognitive scientists and neuroscientists and they don't even have anything enlightening to say about that allegedly biological phenomenon. Emotion is a more borderline subject - I'm not sure it belongs in philosophy at all, so I wouldn't be surprised if neurological studies were more useful than philosophical ones.
Perhaps your friend who said "Don't" simply wanted you to focus on something that might be considered philosophically important rather than seeing your work get buried in a million other neuro-this and neuro-that studies. Reading Lessing or Hegel or Mary Mothersill on beauty is always going to be more helpful than reading neuroaesthetic studies.
excited to see what comes out of this! and agree re: "Putting a patient in an fMRI machine, showing them images of the Mona Lisa or putting on a Mozart symphony, and detecting some kind of increased neural activity in this or that part of the brain, isn’t super enlightening." feel this way about a lot of the fMRI studies I see
Interesting post! I've had the pocket theory that beauty is secretly an emotion for a little while now. After all, people often treat it the same way as love, preferring to experience beauty, rather than break it down into component parts. If I'm spitballing, I'd say that beauty functions as a de-stressor of sorts, encouraging you to slow down, concentrate on less immediately productive behaviors, like staring at the sunset. Probably counteracts anxiety, since beauty is a very present tense emotion, not so preoccupied with the future or past. I feel like beauty is closely tied to novelty, for some reason. Unusual, unsurvivable environments seem to be the most beautiful, in my experience, so maybe it is a subtle encouragement to mix up your lifestyle, seek out new (beautiful) things.
Taken in the larger sense "neuroaesthetics" is the study of the neurological basis of perception, and of course, useful for medical and other reasons. In the sense you mean - studying art and beauty - it has been a going discipline for a long time (at least since the late 1980's), with its own journals, conferences, etc. Definitely publishable - anything that begins with "neuro'" has been publishable in philosophy for a long time (cf. "neuroethics"). For me, I can't even imagine, much less have I seen, a theory or established claim in this field that strikes me as philosophically interesting. It doesn't mean there is nothing to discover - I'm sure that if the "rule of thirds" in photography is a good general principle for creating attractive images, there is some neurological background that helps explain this. But I am interested in the phenomenon itself, how it relates to other aspects of photographic art, why it is a general but not universal guide, etc. The answer to these questions is never, for me, going to lie in neurological facts. Add to that the fact that the alleged neurological basis of any mental phenomenon is almost always defeasible (cf "mirror neurons"). There may be a neurological basis for both Kantian and utilitarian ethics too, but Thompson's study of the trolley problem gives us insights into our ethical intuitions in a way that I can't see any neurological study coming up with. I've read half a dozen books on consciousness by cognitive scientists and neuroscientists and they don't even have anything enlightening to say about that allegedly biological phenomenon. Emotion is a more borderline subject - I'm not sure it belongs in philosophy at all, so I wouldn't be surprised if neurological studies were more useful than philosophical ones.
Perhaps your friend who said "Don't" simply wanted you to focus on something that might be considered philosophically important rather than seeing your work get buried in a million other neuro-this and neuro-that studies. Reading Lessing or Hegel or Mary Mothersill on beauty is always going to be more helpful than reading neuroaesthetic studies.
Consider reading over the propositions in the neuroscience section of this paper on Harmony: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240587262200003X
And this paper on resonance, written with several neuroaestheticians ;)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9097027/
Love your posts, always excellent.
Wonderful presentation Étienne! What are your thoughts on Russellian monism? A fascinating topic, all of this!
excited to see what comes out of this! and agree re: "Putting a patient in an fMRI machine, showing them images of the Mona Lisa or putting on a Mozart symphony, and detecting some kind of increased neural activity in this or that part of the brain, isn’t super enlightening." feel this way about a lot of the fMRI studies I see
Interesting post! I've had the pocket theory that beauty is secretly an emotion for a little while now. After all, people often treat it the same way as love, preferring to experience beauty, rather than break it down into component parts. If I'm spitballing, I'd say that beauty functions as a de-stressor of sorts, encouraging you to slow down, concentrate on less immediately productive behaviors, like staring at the sunset. Probably counteracts anxiety, since beauty is a very present tense emotion, not so preoccupied with the future or past. I feel like beauty is closely tied to novelty, for some reason. Unusual, unsurvivable environments seem to be the most beautiful, in my experience, so maybe it is a subtle encouragement to mix up your lifestyle, seek out new (beautiful) things.