Aesthesis, noesis, or both? Enactivism meets representationalism in aesthetics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21751048 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Onerva Kiianlinna (0000-0003-2378-9318, University of Helsinki, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 301-318 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1568-7759 • E-ISSN: 1572-8676 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11097-024-10042-7 |
| OpenAlex | W4404640392 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 38 |
Two types of systemic models of the mind – the enactivist and the representationalist model – are often depicted as contradictory and mutually exclusive. In this article, I investigate whether they can meaningfully coexist in a viable account of forming aesthetic judgments. I argue that the two models can simultaneously contribute to the understanding of aesthetic judging as an affective cognitive process. First, I clarify why the main disagreement between the models does not apply to the case of aesthetic judging. Second, I trace a possible path for how the two models could be merged in the field of aesthetics. My main argument draws on the idea that perceiving aesthetic value does not belong to basic cognition that can be seen as either enactive or representational, and that hence we can choose to pick the best of both worlds. In other words, we can and indeed should incorporate aspects of both models to do justice to the phenomenon of aesthetic judging. Perceiving aesthetic value requires subjective, or embodied, metacognitive evidence. This representational enactivism entails that the aesthetic subject can be seen as an emergent functional system while the functional sub-systems that constitute the subject can be characterized in representationalist terms
Aesthetic value · Aesthetics · Autopoiesis · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Direct and indirect realism · Embodied cognition · Enactivism · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Perception · Philosophy of mind · Supervenience · Action Observation and Synchronization · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Philosophy · Psychology
Naturalizing The Mind
The Philosophy of Information
The Enigma of Reason
Radicalizing Enactivism
The Meaning of the Body
The Feeling Body
Minds
Telling more than we can know
Psychosemantics
How Do Living Systems Create Meaning
Ugliness Is in the Gut of the Beholder
The nature of perception and emotion in aesthetic appreciation
Enacting the aesthetic
Social norms shape visual appearance
Introduction to Pragmatism and Theories of Emergence
The Embodied Mind
The Content of Perceptual Experience
Aesthetics and the Limits of the Extended Mind
Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |