Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:30:15.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fechner revisited: Towards an inclusive approach to aesthetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

W. Tecumseh Fitch  and
Gesche Westphal-Fitch
W. Tecumseh Fitch
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. [email protected]@univie.ac.athttp://cogbio.univie.ac.at
Gesche Westphal-Fitch
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. [email protected]@univie.ac.athttp://cogbio.univie.ac.at
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Accepting Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) criteria for art appreciation would confine the study of aesthetics to those works for which historical information is available, mainly post–eighteenth-century Western “high art.” We reject their contention that “correct” artistic understanding is limited to experts with detailed knowledge or education in art, which implies a narrowly elitist conception of aesthetics. Scientific aesthetics must be broadly inclusive.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 140 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berlin, B. & Kay, P. (1969) Basic color terms. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fechner, G. T. (1871) Zur Experimentalen Aesthetik. Breitkopf & Härtel.Google Scholar
Fechner, G. T. (1876) Vorschule der Äesthetik [Elements of aesthetics]. Druck und Verlag von Breitkopf & Härtel.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E. H. (1979) The sense of order: A study in the psychology of decorative art. Phaidon.Google Scholar
Honing, H. (2009) Musical cognition: A science of listening. Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Kristeller, P. O. (1952) The modern system of the arts: A study in the history of aesthetics (II). Journal of the History of Ideas 13(1):17–46.Google Scholar
Shiner, L. (2001) The invention of art. A cultural history. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Westphal-Fitch, G., Huber, L., Gomez, J.-C. & Fitch, W. T. (2012) Production and perception rules underlying visual patterns: Effects of symmetry and hierarchy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367, 2007–22.Google Scholar
Yule, G. (2006) The study of language, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar