Nancy E. Aiken
About Nancy Aiken's Book:
Quite a few years ago, Aristotle, posed the question, “How does art evoke emotion?” He wrote a slim volume called, Poetics, in which he pondered this question and a related question, “Why does art evoke emotion?” Since then, many philosophers, critics, and artists have given thought to the first question, but the second question has largely been ignored. Perhaps that is because, until now, no one has answered the first question.
Generally, in order to solve a problem one begins with an idea or an intuition which is followed by applying logic to see if the idea makes sense and accumulating evidence to support the idea. For example, when Charles Darwin stepped ashore on the Galapagos Islands, evolution was much discussed. While it was generally conceded among scientists at the time that plants and animals evolved, the question was what propelled that evolution. The unusual life forms that Darwin saw on the Islands gave him an idea about how animals and plants evolved. He spent many years thereafter applying logic to test his idea and gathering evidence to support his idea. In fact he spent so much time gathering evidence that he was nearly scooped by Alfred Russell Wallace, who had the same idea, spurring Darwin to finally publish Origin of Species. While Wallace gets credit for having the same intuition, Darwin did almost all of the research and testing that supported natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. During the years since Darwin published, others have researched and found overwhelming support for Darwin and Wallace’s idea.
Generally, in order to solve a problem one begins with an idea or an intuition which is followed by applying logic to see if the idea makes sense and accumulating evidence to support the idea. For example, when Charles Darwin stepped ashore on the Galapagos Islands, evolution was much discussed. While it was generally conceded among scientists at the time that plants and animals evolved, the question was what propelled that evolution. The unusual life forms that Darwin saw on the Islands gave him an idea about how animals and plants evolved. He spent many years thereafter applying logic to test his idea and gathering evidence to support his idea. In fact he spent so much time gathering evidence that he was nearly scooped by Alfred Russell Wallace, who had the same idea, spurring Darwin to finally publish Origin of Species. While Wallace gets credit for having the same intuition, Darwin did almost all of the research and testing that supported natural selection as the mechanism of evolution. During the years since Darwin published, others have researched and found overwhelming support for Darwin and Wallace’s idea.
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The problem I hoped to solve was how art evokes emotion. However, the background for my problem was somewhat different from that which confronted Darwin. Philosophers had thought about how art evokes emotion off and on since Aristotle, and the idea that emotion evoked by art was somehow different than ordinary emotion had taken hold of philosophical thinking [See pages 9-17 of my book, The Biological Origins of Art (Westport, CN: Praeger Publishing, 1998)]. Philosophers had turned their attention to this extraordinary response that Kant called “disinterest” (See Kant’s Critique of Judgment and my note concerning this situation on p. 27 of my book.). However, examining my own emotional responses to art and to real events convinced me that emotional response to art was the same emotional response felt in response to natural objects and events. My intuition, then, was that contrary to accepted belief, emotional response to art was the same as ordinary emotional response and not some extraordinary response to art alone. I not only needed to argue against accepted belief, I had to show how ordinary emotional response could be evoked by art. Consequently, studying “real” emotional response in order to understand how art evokes emotion did not make sense in the context of a philosophical viewpoint. Furthermore, solving the problem of how art evokes emotion was complicated by the fact that philosophers more or less no longer considered it a problem. Moreover, attempting to solve what had been considered a problem in philosophical aesthetics using neurobiology was close to blasphemy. Although disruption of philosophic method had occurred many times before (The sciences began as spinoffs from philosophy.), change is always difficult. Nevertheless, I proceeded to test my idea with logic and evidence. If you follow my argument and weigh the evidence, I think you will agree with me that emotional response to art is ordinary, “real” emotional response and there is no special emotional response to art or “disinterest.”
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I began an answer to “How does art evoke emotion?” in The Biological Origins of Art by describing how art evokes fear. The book was the culmination of several years of research working toward a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies (a combination of neurobiology, philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, ethology, and art history). My experimental research for my dissertation was also published in Evolution and Cognition, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1998): 51-62 as “Human cardiovascular response to the eye spot threat stimulus.”
Of course I knew that how art evokes fear is only part of the answer to how art evokes emotion. Having come this far in my research, however, I also knew that fear and pleasure were two primary and ancient emotions in evolutionary terms. If I could figure out how art evokes pleasure, I would probably have the philosophical problem of expression solved even though philosophers of art would not likely be interested. Furthermore, while figuring out how art evokes fear gave me some insight into why art evokes emotion, and figuring out how art evokes pleasure led me to an answer to this question. All of this research allows me to define art in terms of its evolutionary, adaptive function which is anathema not only in philosophical circles but in ordinary human thinking in general. Even worse, the adaptive function of art that I propose does not sit well even among those few who agree that there must be an evolutionary, adaptive function of art. All of this leads to a definition of what art is or why we make art: Art is a tool that can be used to influence the behavior of others without their realizing they have been influenced. Kathryn Coe and I worded this more softly as promoting cooperation in our paper, “Promoting cooperation among humans: The arts as the ties that bind,” Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, Vol. 5 (1) 2004: 5-20.
***Please note: Information on this website may not be reproduced, republished, or mirrored on another webpage or website. Any or all of the text on this website may be printed for personal use, e.g. reading. Duplications for use in a class, etc. may be made with permission. Credit must always be given when duplicated with permission or used in any way such as direct quotes or paraphrasing or referring to ideas. The citation should be: Nancy E. Aiken. (2010) www.nancyeaiken.net.
See http://www.whatiscopyright.org.
Of course I knew that how art evokes fear is only part of the answer to how art evokes emotion. Having come this far in my research, however, I also knew that fear and pleasure were two primary and ancient emotions in evolutionary terms. If I could figure out how art evokes pleasure, I would probably have the philosophical problem of expression solved even though philosophers of art would not likely be interested. Furthermore, while figuring out how art evokes fear gave me some insight into why art evokes emotion, and figuring out how art evokes pleasure led me to an answer to this question. All of this research allows me to define art in terms of its evolutionary, adaptive function which is anathema not only in philosophical circles but in ordinary human thinking in general. Even worse, the adaptive function of art that I propose does not sit well even among those few who agree that there must be an evolutionary, adaptive function of art. All of this leads to a definition of what art is or why we make art: Art is a tool that can be used to influence the behavior of others without their realizing they have been influenced. Kathryn Coe and I worded this more softly as promoting cooperation in our paper, “Promoting cooperation among humans: The arts as the ties that bind,” Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, Vol. 5 (1) 2004: 5-20.
***Please note: Information on this website may not be reproduced, republished, or mirrored on another webpage or website. Any or all of the text on this website may be printed for personal use, e.g. reading. Duplications for use in a class, etc. may be made with permission. Credit must always be given when duplicated with permission or used in any way such as direct quotes or paraphrasing or referring to ideas. The citation should be: Nancy E. Aiken. (2010) www.nancyeaiken.net.
See http://www.whatiscopyright.org.
Books By Nancy Aiken:
The Biological Origins of Art. (1998) Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers.
