Coevolutionary aesthetics in human and biotic artworlds — TEI-tagged view

Richard O. PrumpersName (2013date). “Coevolutionary aesthetics in human and biotic artworlds.” Biology & Philosophytitle·j.

Object of study — the nature of artterm and aestheticsterm, and whether a single theoryterm·mth can span human and non-human ('bioticterm') aestheticterm phenomena

Research question — are there fundamental, substantive similarities between aesthetic changeterm in the human artsterm and organic evolution, such that one account could explain both?

Contribution — a coevolutionary theoryterm·mth of aestheticsterm encompassing bioticterm and human artsterm: artterm is a form of communicationterm that coevolves with its own evaluation, and Danto's Artworldterm is expanded to any aestheticterm population of producers and evaluators

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Coevolutionary aestheticsterm in human and biotic artworldsterm Abstract This work proposes a coevolutionary theoryterm·mth of aestheticsterm that encompasses both bioticterm and human artsterm. Anthropocentric perspectives in aestheticsterm prevent the recognition of the ontological complexity of the aestheticsterm of nature, and the aesthetic agencyterm of many non-human organisms. The process of evaluative coevolutionterm is shared by all biotic advertisementsterm. I propose that artterm consists of a form of communicationterm that coevolves with its own evaluation. Artterm and artterm history are population phenomena. I expand Arthur Danto’s Artworldterm concept to any aestheticterm population of producers and evaluators. Current concepts of artterm cannot exclusively circumscribe the human artsterm from many forms of non-human biotic artterm. Without assuming an arbitrarily anthropocentric perspective, any concept of artterm will need to engage with biodiversity, and either recognize many instances of biotic advertisementsterm as artterm, or exclude some instances of human artterm. Coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm provides a heuristic account of aesthetic changeterm in both human and biotic artworldsterm, including the coevolutionary origin of aestheticterm properties and aesthetic valueterm within artworldsterm. Restructuring aestheticsterm, artterm criticism, and artterm history without human beings at the organizing centers of these disciplines stimulate new progress in our understanding of artterm, and the unique human contributions to aestheticsterm and aestheticterm diversity.

Introduction The ontological diversity of artterm, the diversity of aestheticterm properties, and the complexity of aesthetic changeterm present enormous intellectual challenges to the philosophy of aestheticsterm, artterm criticism, and artterm history. Evolutionary biology shares similar challenges in the study of the diversity the earth’s organisms, their form and functions, the reconstruction of their evolutionary histories, and in understanding the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Neither evolutionary process nor aesthetic changeterm is governed by deterministic laws (Beatty 2006 ; Sober 2006 ). Consequently, evolutionary biology must be investigated and understood in specific historical, taxonomic, comparative, developmental, and population contexts. But what of aestheticsterm? Are there more fundamental and substantive similarities between aesthetic changeterm and organic evolution?

The possibility of substantive intellectual connections between aestheticsterm and evolutionary biology date back at least to Darwin’s ( 1871 ) Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, in which he elaborated the theoryterm·mth of sexual selection by mate choice. Darwin hypothesized that a female “aestheticterm faculty”—literally an evolved “taste for the beautiful” that is exercised during mate choice—constitutes a distinct evolutionary force that leads to the evolution of ornamental traits in animals. Darwin used aestheticterm language to describe mating preferences in order to communicate his hypothesis that animals were making choices on the basis of their own subjective sensory and cognitive experiences, and that these choices could lead to the evolution of arbitrarily attractive traits that are unrelated to any naturally selected advantage to the individual making the choice (Cronin 1991 ; PrumpersName 2012 ). In the nineteenth century, Alfred Russel Wallace et al. aimed ferocious criticism at Darwin’s aestheticterm theoryterm·mth of mate choice, arguing that any such process would be “neutralised” by the strong force of natural selection (Wallace 1889 , 1895 ). Consequently, sexual selection was largely abandoned for nearly a century. Interestingly, the resurgent, contemporary version of sexual selection theoryterm·mth is largely organized around the Neo–Wallacean assumption that the evolution of mating preferences will be dictated by strong natural selection for honest indicators of male quality or mating efficiency, and does not follow Darwin’s own arbitrary, aestheticterm view (Cronin 1991 ; PrumpersName 2010 , 2012 ). For this reason, the adaptationist trend in current sexual selection theoryterm·mth may have discouraged the development of productive connections to aestheticsterm. Following Darwin’s view, I have argued that the coevolution of display traits and mating preferences constitutes a distinct mode of aestheticterm evolution in which the subjective sensory and cognitive experiences of mate choice can have evolutionary consequences independent of natural selection (PrumpersName 2012 ).

Recently, Dutton ( 2009 ) has applied the adaptive, honest signaling sexual selection paradigm to the origin of artterm in people, and proposed that the evolution of the human capacity to produce artterm evolved through female mate choice for adaptive indicators of male mate quality or condition. These evolutionary psychology approaches to human aestheticsterm do little to explain actual variations in the form and content of human artterm. More recently, Davies ( 2012 ) has presented a more nuanced aestheticterm analysis of the origins of human artterm. Here, however, I am concerned with broader commonalities between certain modes of biological evolution and the ongoing, historical process of aesthetic changeterm in the human artsterm.

Given the ontological diversity of the human entities, artifacts, and performances that are generally considered as aestheticterm, the fundamental goals of aestheticsterm are to establish accounts of the nature of aesthetic entitiesterm, aestheticterm properties, aestheticterm judgments, and the process of aesthetic changeterm over time. Currently, the field of aestheticsterm has achieved little consensus on either a general theoretical framework, or specific solutions to these philosophical challenges. Here, I propose a coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm that provides new solutions to classic questions in biological and human aestheticsterm.

In this article, I explore the idea that artterm arises through a generalizable aestheticterm process that is not exclusive to human beings. I propose that a coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm provides a heuristic, non-reductive account of the nature of artterm, the origin of aestheticterm properties, and the process of aesthetic changeterm. My proposal contradicts the assertion that the realm of aestheticsterm consists of an unnatural assemblage of phenomena invented by early modern philosophers (Carroll 2008 ). The lack of a coherent aestheticterm theoryterm·mth by the ancients is not evidence that aestheticsterm is a modern invention. Rather, the existence of a distinct class of aestheticterm phenomena is a modern, empirical discovery, which implies that there are additional aestheticterm discoveries to be made. I propose that the diverse natural phenomena categorized as aesthetic entitiesterm arise through a common, intellectually discoverable aestheticterm process.

Here, I present the core proposal of a coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm. I begin with an analysis of the diversity of aestheticterm components of Nature. I argue that many biotic advertisementsterm (e.g. animal courtship displays, fruits, flowers, etc.) share with human artterm a common mechanism of coevolving with their evaluations. Coevolution is the process of descent with reciprocal modification among entities through repeated dynamic interactions between them. I provide a brief description of sexual selection by mate choice as an example of a biological theoryterm·mth of evaluative coevolutionterm. I then present a coevolutionary account of artterm. Specifically, I propose that artterm consists of a form of communicationterm that coevolves with its evaluation (i.e. evolves in relation with, and in response to, its evaluation). I argue that many previously proposed anthropocentric requirements for artterm fail to exclude various non-human biotic advertisementsterm. As Darwin ( 1871 ) proposed, I conclude that many animals share with humans the capacity for aesthetic agencyterm—the state of participating in process of aestheticterm expression, evaluation, judgment, and change.

Accordingly, many forms of biotic advertisementsterm constitute non-human forms of artterm, which I call biotic artterm. Like biological evolution, artterm, aesthetic changeterm and artterm history are population phenomenon. Accordingly, I expand on Danto’s ( 1964 ) concept of The Artworldterm to refer to any population of coevolving aesthetic entitiesterm and evaluators. The existence of myriads of non-human biotic artworldsterm constitutes exactly the type of challenge to aestheticterm theoryterm·mth that Danto supposed in The Artworldterm (see epigraph).

My goal is a universal aestheticterm theoryterm·mth that neither reduces, replaces, nor explains away traditional aestheticterm inquiry with adaptationist, biological analysis. Rather, I propose that by focusing on the historical process of the coevolutionary entrainment of aestheticterm producers and evaluators within aestheticterm populations, we can provide broadly heuristic tools for understanding a diversity of issues in evolutionary biology, human aestheticsterm, artterm, and artterm history. Artterm and aestheticsterm are emergent consequences of advertisement communicationterm, evaluation, choice, and evolutionary feedback; they cannot be reduced to more fundamental processes.

Aestheticsterm of nature Contemporary philosophical views of the aestheticsterm of nature are insufficient to comprehend the breadth of aestheticterm complexity in nature. There are at least two important deficiencies—(1) absence of consideration of the potential aesthetic agencyterm of non-human animals, and (2) an absence of consideration of the ontological diversity of natural phenomena that have become the objects of human aestheticterm regard.

In previous aestheticterm literature, the “aestheticsterm of nature” refers exclusively to human aesthetic experienceterm of nature without consideration of the possibility of aesthetic agencyterm of non-human organisms. There are several biological reasons to suspect that this view is overly narrow. First, there is nothing special about the sensory systems of humans to support our current privileged position in aestheticsterm. Humans are only one of millions of species of animals with elaborate and integrated sensory systems and derived communicationterm signals that evolve by appealing to those senses. Human sensory systems are evolutionarily homologous with other vertebrates, and are mostly little changed from our mammalian and primate ancestors. In every sensory modality we have, human are greatly exceeded by the sensory complexity of at least some other vertebrates. Thus, there is no biological reason to assume that non-human organisms lack the sensory capacity for aesthetic experienceterm. Sensory biology provides no legitimate reason to exclude the sensory experiences of non-human organisms from aestheticterm consideration.

If non-human animals lack aesthetic agencyterm—that is, the capacity to exhibit autonomous behavioral preferences based on cognitive evaluation of sensory information—then they must lack something other than the requisite sensory complexity. Is that something sensory judgment? Biologically, this is unlikely. Volumes of scientific literature document that many animals make numerous sensory evaluations or judgments as part of their lives—for example, among potential mates, fruits, or flowers (e.g. Ryan et al. 2009 ). Thus, as Darwin ( 1871 ) asserted, we have no reason to discount the potential for aesthetic agencyterm by non-human animals.

To understand aestheticterm process broadly, it is necessary to recognize the ontological diversity of the distinct, historically and mechanistically heterogeneous components of nature. Most philosophers have viewed nature as an aesthetically ‘flat’ tableau. Physical phenomena, land forms, geological objects, ecological communities, single species, individual organisms, and their performances are all treated as ontologically undifferentiated objects of human aestheticterm regard (Budd 2003 ).

The lack of recognition of the potential for aesthetic agencyterm in non-human animals has obfuscated fundamental differences in the ontology of the various components of nature that have traditionally been the subject of aestheticterm human regard. The most fundamental, aesthetically relevant ontological category in nature is the distinction between the abioticterm and the bioticterm. It is essential to recognize that a starry night sky and the song of a Wood Thrush ( Hylocichla mustelina ) are profoundly different phenomena whose properties arise by entirely different mechanisms—i.e. abioticterm optical physics alone, or functional organismal physiology resulting from millions of years of genetic and cultural evolution, respectively. This fundamental fact appears to have been previously unrecognized in aestheticsterm.

Following the abioticterm/bioticterm distinction in nature, we must further differentiate among various biological phenomena. Why, for example, do philosophers frequently cite flowers as examples of natural beautyterm (e.g. Kant 1987 ), but not plant roots? A biological component of the answer lies in the fundamental differences between the functional substrates of these two distinct components of the phenotype of a flowering plant, and the mechanisms by which these plant parts have evolved for their functions. Roots function in absorbing water and nutrients from the soil, and in stabilizing the plant in the soil. The functions of a root can be described entirely by physical and physiological data. In contrast, the flower is an advertisement to animal pollinators that provides a physical structure to mediate the exchange of nectar for pollination transport services. Some parts of the flower function in the production of ovules and pollen for sexual reproduction, but the conspicuous components of the flower—including its fragrance, and the number, shape, and color of petals and sepals—function in advertising to, attracting, indeed enticing, animal pollinators. Unlike roots, these components of the flower function through the subjective sensory perceptions and cognitive evaluations of other organisms. An animal regards the flower, evaluates that experience, and then decides whether to feed on its nectar, or to reject it and proceed to evaluate another competing floral nectar source. As a consequence of cognitive evaluations and foraging decisions, pollinators will either aid the plant in achieving pollination or not, and thus determine its reproductive success. Unlike the roots, a complete description of the function of a flower requires understanding the subjective sensory experiences, subsequent cognitive states, and decisions of the populations of pollinators that observe the flower. The optimal floral design cannot determined by adaptation to physical laws, but by the frequency dependent perceptual evaluations and cognitive states of a dynamically evolving population of potential consumers within a diverse community of competing floral species. As expected, wind pollinated flowers, whose function can be described entirely by physical forces and physiological data (e.g. elms, oaks), have notably are flowers that devoid of obvious aestheticterm qualities.

Aesthetic coevolutionterm in nature Flowers are biotic advertisementsterm that function in a marketplace of animal sensory experiences and choices. The cognitive functional substrate of the flower creates the opportunity for a distinct mode of evolutionary process that does not occur to a plant’s roots. The flower’s visual and olfactory displays do not merely accidentally correlate to and exploit the desires of pollinators. Rather, the form of the flower and the sensory systems and judgments of the pollinator have coevolved with one another. Flowers have evolved to attract the sensory and cognitive systems of pollinators with memorable stimulus associated with a valuable reward, and pollinator nervous systems have evolved to evaluate, differentiate, remember diverse flowers. Furthermore, foragers develop their own floral preferences in response to their individual experiences with floral diversity. Flowers diversify among plant species because they are differentially successful at influencing the sensory judgments and cognitive decisions of different pollinators. 1 The diversity of floral form and fragrance documents the evolutionary history of myriads of innovations to entice animals to aid them in affecting gamete transfer among individuals. No such process has occurred in the evolution of the plant’s roots.

In general, coevolved bioticterm signals in nature function explicitly as advertisements to other organisms. These signals include advertisements of sexual availability, advertisements of desire (such as baby begging calls), advertisements of the availability of ecological resources like nectar, pollen, or fruit, and advertisements of danger like the venomous rattlesnake’s rattle or the bold markings of the noxious skunk. Biotic advertisementsterm may function within a single species or among multiple species.

Biotic advertisementsterm evolve by a distinct mechanism from other communicationterm signals because they are subject to, and coevolve with, the sensory judgments and evaluations of other organisms. To function, all communicationterm signals must coevolve with their receivers, but not all signals coevolve with subjective sensory/cognitive evaluations . For example, both avian alarm callsterm and songs communicate to conspecifics acoustically. Bird songsterm often function in mate choice through conspecific sensory evaluation. By evaluating mate advertisement songs, a female bird may decide on one mate or another. However, a bird does not evaluate the quality of an alarm callterm before it decides whether to respond to its warning. Unlike bird songterm, once an alarm callterm is recognized as an alarm, its acoustic form or content is not subject to sensory evaluation and judgment. Likewise, variation in aestheticterm quality among different individual Stop signs has no bearing on their meaning or function; we don’t just stop for the pretty ones. The fundamental difference in the coevolution between signal and receiver in different avian vocal signals creates the striking differences in signal complexity. It is not an accident that bird songsterm are generally considered beautiful and that bird calls are not.

Coevolution by sexual selection Biotic advertisementsterm are those components, productions, or performances of an organism that function through, indeed invite, sensory evaluation. They evolve in contexts in which competing individuals cannot succeed by use of force, and must therefore use sensory/cognitive persuasion to achieve ecological, social or sexual success. Coevolution by sensory evaluation is responsible for the form and diversity of biotic advertisementsterm. Evolutionary biologists have focused extensively on understanding the coevolution of biotic advertisementterm·def in various contexts, including pollination and fruit dispersers, but an especially rich example comes from the theoryterm·mth of the sexual selection through mate choice.

Darwin ( 1871 ) proposed the mechanism of sexual selection by mate choice, in which individuals of one sex—usually females—choose individual mates of the other sex. Darwin proposed that mate choice will result in the evolution of elaborate, ornamental advertisement traits. Darwin explicitly proposed that mating preferences were aestheticterm preferences (Cronin 1991 ; PrumpersName 2012 ). Further, Darwin’s concept of sexual selection was explicitly coevolutionary; even without a clear concept of genetics, he hypothesized the male ornament and female aestheticterm preferences advance together (PrumpersName 2012 ). Although it was almost completely rejected for the next century, Darwin’s idea has yielded a richly developed contemporary, coevolutionary sexual selection theoryterm·mth (see Andersson 1994 ; Rice 2004 ; Kokko 2005 ; Fuller et al. 2005 ; PrumpersName 2012 ).

Models of sexual selection by mate choice are classified by the mechanism of evolution of mating preferences (Kirkpatrick and Ryan 1991 ). The simplest, aestheticterm null model of display trait and mating preference evolution is the Lande–Kirkpatrick mechanism (Lande 1981 ; Kirkpatrick 1982 ; Kirkpatrick and Ryan 1991 ; PrumpersName 2010 , 2012 ), which is the complete, contemporary version of the arbitrary, aestheticterm sexual selection of Darwin ( 1871 ) and the runway mechanism of Fisher ( 1915 , 1930 ). In this aestheticterm, null mechanism of evolution by mate choice, genes for display traits and mating preferences become correlated with each other. Then, selection by mating preferences on display traits creates indirect selection on mating preferences themselves. Thus, mate choice results in the self-organizing, evolution of arbitrary preferences or, as Darwin wrote, “standards of beautyterm” in each population and species.

Alternatively, following Alfred Russel Wallace, mate preferences can be hypothesized to evolve by strong natural selection (Cronin 1991 ; PrumpersName 2010 , 2012 ). These mechanisms predict the evolution of displays that are robust indicators of mate quality or other direct benefits. These Neo–Wallacean mechanism predict much reduced diversification in trait and preferences among populations (PrumpersName 1997 , 2010 , 2012 ).

The aestheticterm null model of sexual selection is explicitly coevolutionary; display traits and preferences coevolve with one another. Adaptive mate choice models have usually been constructed to eliminate the possibility of coevolution (e.g. Grafen 1990 ), but this has been done merely to demonstrate the theoretical efficacy of natural selection alone in the absence of trait/preference genetic correlation. There is no reason to hypothesize that adaptive mate choice does not involve trait/preference coevolution. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence of the coevolution of display traits and mating preferences in nature (PrumpersName 2012 ).

The coevolution of artterm The ontological diversity, the multiple sensory modalities utilized, and the ever changing nature of human artterm is mirrored by the diversity, sensory properties, and dynamic change of coevolved biotic advertisementterm·def of non-human organisms. I propose that these similarities arise from a common coevolutionary aestheticterm process.

Put simply, artterm consists of a form of communicationterm that has coevolved with its evaluation. 2 Aesthetic coevolutionterm is the process by which performances or artifacts and their evaluations mutually transform each other over time through their history of interactions. Aesthetic coevolutionterm proceeds by the feedback between innovations in communicationterm and evaluation upon each other. Evaluation involves a cognitive estimation of the sensory perception or cognitive experience engendered by the stimulus or artifact. Cognitive evaluation may involve both variation in immediately accessible sensory data and secondary cognitive associations. Criteria for aestheticterm judgment by each individual may be determined by genetic, environmental, learned, cultural, psychological, individual, or random factors. Aestheticterm evaluation can involve a single or multiple sensory modalities and cognitive dimensions. Judgment by an individual may be influenced (e.g. heightened, exaggerated, inhibited, etc.) by simultaneous or serial comparison to previous individual aesthetic experiencesterm, but such comparative judgment is not essential. Coevolutionary process proceeds by the differential success and feedback of aesthetic entitiesterm and evaluative preferences (by genetic and/or cultural mechanisms; see below).

The coevolutionary aestheticterm account provides an heuristic description of the mechanism of aesthetic changeterm in the artsterm. For example, W. A. Mozart’s musical innovations transformed the aestheticterm judgments of audiences—i.e. their capacity to imagine what music could be and what form it could take. The transformation of aestheticterm judgments among observers dynamically fed back upon the production of new musical compositions and performances by other composers and artists, and fostered the creation of additional aestheticterm innovations in music.

This coevolutionary framework also encompasses the “low artsterm” such as commercial advertisement, kitsch, toys, games, popular music, graffiti, etc. The concept excludes language in general, in which form and meaning are coevolved but not through evaluation, but would include rhetoric, literature, poetry, and slang in which the specific form of linguistic expression does coevolve with its evaluation. 3 This coevolutionary concept of artterm would exclude technologies that coevolve with their functions but are not forms of communicationterm (e.g. hinges, cars, computers, etc.). Like plant roots, the performance of such technological entities are specific to their explicit, non-sensory functions: i.e. a hinges capacity to rotate stably, etc. But, the coevolutionary concept would include various applications of such technologies that function in communicationterm and coevolve with sensory evaluation (e.g. like decorative furnishings, automotive styling, and computer user interfaces and games).

A coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm does not assume or require any notion or mechanism of “progress” in aesthetic changeterm. Rather, as in mate choice, aesthetic changeterm can proceed in arbitrary directions depending upon the intrinsic consequences of evaluative success of various communicationterm signals in creating coevolutionary feedback. As in sexual selection, I hypothesize that additional extrinsic forces (e.g. natural selection, cultural influences, institutional control, etc.) can act on evaluation to drive aestheticterm process in non-arbitrary directions or constrain change to create stasis.

The coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm does not privilege the role of aestheticterm producers in aestheticterm process or change. Evaluative innovations may have just as powerful an effect on aesthetic coevolutionterm as producer innovations. Collectors/audiences/readers/critics may play as active a role in the process of aesthetic changeterm as artists/authors/performers. Thus, coevolutionary aestheticsterm is compatible with literary and aestheticterm theories that focus on the active role of the audience/reader in the interpretation of artworks.

Aestheticsterm as an historical process Arthur Danto developed an influential aestheticterm theoryterm·mth through analyses of Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and through other aestheticterm thought experiments (Danto 1964 , 1981 , 1984 , 1997 , 2003 ). Danto’s aestheticterm theoryterm·mth presaged several essential elements of this coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm. Danto argued that whether an entity constitutes artterm requires understanding its appropriate historical context; he maintained that Warhol’s Brillo Boxes would not have been regarded as artterm 50, 100, or 500 years prior to the creation and first exhibition of this revolutionary artterm work in 1964. The critical feature of historical context, Danto suggested, is whether observers have an appropriate “theory of artterm” to appreciate the entity as artterm. A “theory of artterm” is an observer cognitive structure or capacity that critically affects the outcome of the evaluation of an otherwise identical sensory experience. Danto’s thought experiments precisely identified the role of the evolution of observer aestheticterm preferences over time in the genesis of artterm and aesthetic changeterm, and they implicate an essential role for historical process in the determining what is artterm.

Danto, however, did not fully recognize the inherently coevolutionary feedback between the production of aesthetic entitiesterm and aestheticterm judgments. In a fully coevolutionary account of Danto’s classic example, the novelty of Brillo Boxes transformed the aesthetic experiencesterm of some observers (most notably Danto). These aesthetically transformed observers included artists, critics, collectors, etc. who interacted directly or indirectly with artists, creating coevolutionary feedback on subsequent aestheticterm production that contributed to innovation in the production of new aesthetic entitiesterm, and further coevolution with subsequent aestheticterm evaluation.

The coevolutionary account of artterm is consistent with Danto’s view of the historical component of evaluator aestheticterm preferences, or “theories of artterm”, as well as subsequent historical definitions of artterm (Levinson 1979 , 1989 ). But the fully coevolutionary theoryterm·mth provides a broader understanding of the role of history and population processes in aesthetic changeterm, and not just on the transformation of everyday objects presented in a new context to become artterm. Furthermore, the coevolutionary theoryterm·mth also eliminates the circularity of some historically ‘recursive’ definitions of artterm (Levinson 1989 ) by providing a clear-cut criterion for recognizing each origin of artterm—the initiation of the process of evaluative coevolutionterm. 4 Artworldsterm are aestheticterm populations Another forward-looking component of Danto’s ( 1964 ) aestheticsterm lies in his concept of The Artworldterm —the social and cultural context in which theories of artterm evolve. The fundamental intellectual discovery achieved by Danto’s Artworldterm concept is the recognition of the critical role of a population of interacting aesthetic entitiesterm, producers, and aestheticterm observers in aestheticterm process. Danto’s Artworldterm consists of interactive communities of artists, critics, curators, performers, dealers, collectors, and general audiences who, together, influence theories of artterm. Thus, coevolution is a population phenomenon. The process of aesthetic changeterm necessarily takes place in the context of a population of aestheticterm producers/entities and observers/evaluators. Artterm is a form of social behavior.

Rather than narrowing Danto’s concept of the artworldterm, as Dickie ( 1974 ) proposed in his institutional theory of artterm, I propose to broaden it. An artworldterm is any population (or actively interacting group of subpopulations) of coevolving aesthetic entitiesterm, producers, and evaluators. The diversity of human cultural groups in which artterm coevolves requires that we recognize that there are multiple human “artworldsterm” with different populations of interacting producers and observers. Human artworldsterm can be highly exclusive, or broad and interpenetrating. However, human artworldsterm are merely a subsample of the many, diverse biotic artworldsterm which share the same fundamental aestheticterm process of evaluative coevolutionterm. (For convenience, I will use the term biotic artworldterm to refer to non-human artworldsterm even though humans are obviously also organisms.) In addition, I broaden the artworldterm concept to include all mechanisms of evaluative coevolutionary process. Thus, the coevolutionary account encompasses and is entirely consistent with, but is not limited to, the social processes that are central to Dickie’s institutional theory of artterm. 5 The commonalities shared by bioticterm and human artworldsterm are more than just a convenient analogy. Their shared attributes arise from a common aestheticterm process of evaluative coevolutionterm independently manifest in different populations. Thus, bird songsterm are not merely natural sounds that humans may experience aesthetically, but products of the coevolution of acoustic structure and form with the aestheticterm judgments of other individual birds within independent avian artworldsterm. Like Brillo Boxes , the history of aesthetic changeterm affects the efficacy of aestheticterm signals within avian artterm worlds. For example, Derryberry ( 2007 ) conducted experiments on White-crowned Sparrows ( Zonotrichia leucophrys) in which she played recordings of contemporaneous male songs and male songs recorded 24 years earlier to females and males at the same locality. The older songs elicited behavioral responses nearly half as efficiently as the contemporaneous songs. Thus, aesthetic changeterm in the White-crowned Sparrows affects the form of the vocal signals, the content of vocal preferences, and degrades the efficacy of historic vocal signals.

Artworldterm participation distinguishes biotic artterm from other natural entities that are sometimes considered aesthetically but are not artterm. Floral shape, color, and scent are not beautiful in the same way as a sunsetterm or the twinkling stars, because flowers are products of coevolving artworldsterm consisting of multiple competing plant species communicating to, and coevolving with, the sensory systems of multiple discerning, judgmental individuals of different species of pollinators. By contrast, the color of the sunsetterm and the twinkling of the stars are determined by physical mechanisms that cannot coevolve with our evaluations of them. The sunsetterm, uncut gemstones, pinecones, and the night sky are not artterm because they do not coevolve with sensory evaluations of them. Sunsetsterm and plant roots are not participants in any aestheticterm population. Any aestheticterm properties these entities may have can only arise because the observers have previously coevolved aestheticterm preferences through interactions with genuine artterm forms, and these observers bring these aestheticterm preferences to, or project them on, additional sensory experiences outside of the context in which they coevolved. Thus, I hypothesize that sunsetsterm are not beautiful to gorillas and chimpanzees even though they have the sensory systems that are virtually identical to our own, because these apes are not participants in any artworldterm in which they could have coevolved visual aestheticterm preferences to project onto the sunsetterm.

I propose that the recognition of a myriad of biotic artworldsterm constitutes the “discovery of new class of artterm”. Exactly as Danto ( 1964 ) supposed in the quote cited in the epigraph, this discovery should challenge aestheticterm theoryterm·mth in the same way that a new body of scientific facts challenges a scientific theoryterm·mth.

An aestheticterm theory of artterm Having embraced two fundamental insights from Danto—the historical/transformational nature of artterm, and the Artworldterm as the aestheticterm population—it is important to outline how this proposal differs, even radically, from Danto’s complete view. Most fundamentally, contra Danto, I am proposing an explicitly aestheticterm theory of artterm in which the concepts of artterm and aestheticsterm are necessarily interdependent. In other words, I am proposing a single, common account of both phenomena.

Previous aestheticterm theories of artterm have been based upon the centrality of individual aesthetic experienceterm to the definition of artterm. These theories have failed from the lack of a defensible account of the nature of aesthetic experienceterm (Carroll 1999 ). Although nearly all discussions of aestheticterm theories of artterm have only entertained this aesthetic experienceterm definition, there is no reason why aestheticterm theories of artterm need be framed in this way.

Here, I propose an aestheticterm theory of artterm based on the existence of a distinct aestheticterm process —the coevolution of artterm and its evaluation. Aesthetic experienceterm is not merely any perceptually based sensibility; rather, aesthetic experienceterm includes those perceptual sensibilities and cognitive responses that are shaped by evaluative coevolutionterm with aesthetic entitiesterm, or artterm. Accordingly, there is no artterm without aestheticsterm, and no aestheticsterm without artterm. 6 Both phenomena can be distinguished from other entities or experiences by their shared history of coevolutionary aestheticterm process.

Unlike previous attempts define the aestheticterm, the coevolutionary criterion provides an explicit account of aesthetic experienceterm that applies in a diversity of contexts, including humans and non-human species. A revolutionary implication of this argument is that the nature of the aestheticterm is as historically dynamic as the nature of artterm. Aestheticterm sensibilities are not merely the static, hard-wired, biological, essentialist, positive components of sensory experience. As the history of artterm history proves, aestheticterm responses do change because they are themselves continually shaped by coevolution with the aesthetic entitiesterm of their regard.

Accordingly, I consider the concept of “anaesthetic artterm” to be an oxymoron. Analyses that imply that revolutionary artworks, like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, are non-aesthetic or anti-aesthetic fail to recognize that the aestheticterm itself is transformed by aestheticterm process just like the criteria for what constitutes an artwork. The history of artterm is full of radical artworks that were initially rejected that but were later reevaluated as aesthetically successful and even beautiful, as standards of aestheticterm evaluation coevolved with the form, content, or mode of expression. The aestheticterm is not a static concept that lies outside the artsterm in the reductionist realm of sensory biology or cognitive science. Although this may seem disruptive to traditions of the discipline, the aestheticterm needs to be understood as a dynamic concept that exists because of, and through, its coevolutionary interrelationship with artterm.

This concept of the aestheticterm may be rejected by many as overly broad. However, I do not make this proposal to be contentious or fashionably ‘post-human’, but to provide a constructive framework for understanding the nature and diversity of aestheticterm phenomena, including the human artsterm.

Omission and commission The inclusion of coevolved biotic advertisementsterm as artterm could be considered by some an as “error of commission” by a coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm. However, many previously proposed, anthropocentric requirements for the concept of artterm result in either the inclusion of some non-human bioticterm phenomena as artterm, or the omission of some universally accepted human artterm forms from recognition as artterm. Once aestheticsterm seriously engages with biodiversity, it becomes difficult to establish a non-arbitrary account of artterm that will circumscribe all recognized forms of human artterm but not include forms of non-human communicationterm.

For example, artterm could be restricted to artifacts produced by an individual (Levinson 2006 , 26–37). This condition would exclude flowers or the sexually dimorphic plumage ornaments of birds as artterm since these are not artifactual products of an individual, but parts of the individual. Such a requirement, however, could not exclude organismal vocal performances, physical displays, or display constructions such as the bowers made by male bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae) (Frith and Frith 2004 ). The artifactual requirement would also exclude hairstyles or certain performances in which the human body is itself presented as an artwork (e.g. Abramović et al. 2005 ). Without arbitrarily restricting an “individual” to be a human being only, the artifactuality requirement cannot exclude all biotic artterm.

Artterm can be conceived as consisting only of entities that have culturally determined form. However, aestheticterm culture is not limited to humans. There are over 4,000 species of birds—including oscine songbirds, parrots, hummingbirds, and bellbirds ( Procnias) —that learn their songs from other individuals of their species (Kroodsma 1981 , 2005 ; Searcy and Nowicki 2005 ; Saranathan et al. 2007 ). In many bird species, these learned songs have discrete structural features (i.e. notes and phrases) that make it possible to identify which individuals have learned from whom, and to describe exhaustively the process of cultural evolution in song of an entire population. For example, Robert B. Payne and colleagues documented the history and pattern of cultural evolution in song of Indigo Buntings Passerina cyanea over two decades in two populations in Payne et al. ( 1988 ). Payne documented that learning errors and individual vocal innovations constitute cultural mutations that can be subsequently traced as markers of cultural descent through the songs of other individuals that learn them over time. These avian vocal innovations live on in a population longer than the individuals that create them. Cumulative cultural evolution in learned bird songterm ultimately gives rise to local song variations and regional dialects that the birds themselves distinguish and recognize. Similar processes occur but are less well understood in the songs of whales (Noad et al. 2000 ) and in the ornamentation of male bowerbird bowers with colorful objects (Diamond 1982 ; Frith and Beehler 1998 ). The origin of song learning and culture in oscine songbirds occurred tens of millions years ago, perhaps even predating the completion of the break up of Gondwanaland (Barker et al. 2004 ). Although human culture is possibly 100,000 years old, songbirds have been doing ‘aestheticterm culture’ on a grand scale for tens of millions of years. Thus, a cultural requirement for artterm will not distinguish biotic artterm from human artterm.

Artterm could be required to be the product of an aesthetic intentionterm by an individual or a group of individuals. Aesthetic intentionterm consists of the production, presentation, or performance of an aestheticterm entity or artifact with conscious regard for its potential for evaluation by another individual. I argue that an aesthetic intentionterm requirement does not clearly exclude bioticterm phenomena as artterm. Our judgments about whether intention exists are based largely on our own subjective experiences of what it is like to be human. Generalizing from our own experience, we easily grant aesthetic intentionterm to the Cro-Magnon cave painters of Lascaux. But, we hesitate to infer intention from the actions of non-human organisms because they are so different from us. However, our doubts about animal intention should not be used as evidence against its existence.

If intention to act is considered as a cognitive mental state, then scientific observations may be relevant to such an inquiry. While a plant cannot have a conscious intention to attract a pollinator to its flowers, neurobiological evidence is consistent with the interpretation of aesthetic intentionterm in singing male songbirds. The patterns of neural activity in the brain of a male Zebra Finches ( Taeniopygia guttata ) are functionally distinct when a male is singing to himself from when that male is singing to a potential mate (Jarvis et al. 1998 ). When a solitary male sings without an evaluating audience, the neural circuits of the male’s posterior vocal pathway that are involved vocal motor control and the anterior vocal pathway involved in song learning and vocal self-monitoring are all physiologically active. When a male sings the same exact song to a female (i.e. a potential evaluator of his vocal performance), the brain regions involved in vocal motor control are active, but the anterior vocal pathway circuits are not. The experiments were also controlled for the mere presence of a second, non-evaluating individual; the male’s neural circuit activity is the same when he is singing in the presence of another male, who is not a potential evaluator of his song, as it is when singing alone (Jarvis et al. 1998 ).

These experiments indicate that the male songbird’s cognitive state during vocal performance is distinctly different when the male perceives that his song has the potential to be evaluated. Thus, a singing male bird does not merely reproduce his song in mechanical response to a physiological drive, like a biological music box. Rather, the cognitive state of the male songbird during identical vocal performances differs with the potential for aestheticterm evaluation of his song. These data are consistent with the presence of aesthetic intentionterm in singing male Zebra Finch, and likely other animals with complex display behavior. For example, the careful process of the arrangement of found objects—including feathers, snail shells, fruits, flowers, bones, colorful insects, caterpillar droppings, etc.—by male bowerbirds at their bowers shows strikingly specific decisions that indicate similar pattern of conscious regard for their aestheticterm evaluation (Frith and Frith 2004 ). As Dutton ( 2009 ) states, “even found objects—pieces of driftwood and the like—are transformed into intentional objects by the process of selection and display”. Although Dutton’s cluster concept of artterm excludes non-human animals, his intentionality criterion does not. 7 Artterm could be required to have meaning, or embodied meaning (Danto 1981 , 1984 , 1997 ). Meaning is any additional information communicated by an artwork to the observer other than its existence, its objective form, and its availability for evaluation. Like human artterm, however, biotic artterm can also encode extra-sensory meaning such as information about mate quality. For example, the carotenoid pigment molecules which male House Finches ( Carpodacus mexicanus ) use to create red plumage ornaments come from the diet. If these pigments are rare in the diet, then the redness of the plumage may encode information about the quality of male’s diet, and perhaps the males overall genetic quality or health. Variation in such display traits could communicate an explicit, embodied meaning—male diet quality and condition—to a female with coevolved mating preferences. 8 Similarly, warning coloration of venomous snakes or toxic butterflies have coevolved to mean that they are noxious and to be avoided. Thus, a requirement for meaning will not exclude all biotic advertisementsterm as artterm. Furthermore, the requirement for meaning in an artwork would exclude various human artterm forms that have universally recognized aestheticterm qualities, such as many forms of abstract music.

In conclusion, a full consideration of the complexity of biodiversity indicates that the necessary conditions of many contemporary concepts of artterm would lead to the inclusion of some bioticterm phenomena as artterm, or inappropriately exclude human phenomena that are nearly universally recognized as artterm. If inclusion of some form of biotic artterm is necessary to any appropriate account of the human artsterm, then the commission of biotic artterm by the coevolutionary theoryterm·mth is acceptable and appropriate. Artterm and the aestheticterm are emergent properties of communicationterm, sensory experience, cognitive evaluation, and coevolutionary feedback. We should be fully prepared for these properties to have emerged multiple times in the history of life.

In addition to biotic artterm, the coevolutionary account would include such human artifacts as commercial advertisements and packaging, and even pornography as artterm. Although the classification of these genres as artterm may be troublesome to some, it is not clear exactly how such genres are actually different from artterm. They may very well be bad artterm, but aestheticterm failure does not constitute a failure to be artterm (Zangwill 2001 ). Indeed, Danto ( 2003 ) acknowledged that the original Brillo box was designed by the failed abstract expressionist painter James Harvey. Thus, Warhol’s Brillo Boxes was a duplicate of an everyday piece of commercial artterm whose design was informed by abstract expressionism. Furthermore, the boundaries between pornography and high artterm have been actively negotiated and dynamically changing for centuries. Many works that were once considered scandalous and pornographic are now canonical—such as Édouard Manet’s 1865 painting Olympia. Indeed, the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf —among the oldest known human artworks—could easily be considered pornographic given its pendulous breasts and explicit genitalia.

Genetic and cultural coevolution The specific mechanisms of coevolutionary feedback between aesthetic entitiesterm and evaluations in human and biotic artworldsterm are clearly very diverse. Yet, just as the ontological diversity of artterm itself does not prevent the recognition of the discipline of aestheticsterm (Davies 2003 ), the inherent diversity of coevolutionary aestheticterm mechanisms should not prevent us from recognizing the results of these processes as artterm. Variation in the coevolutionary mechanisms of bioticterm and human artterm should be conceptualized as a product of coevolutionary aestheticterm process acting on genetic, environmental, and cultural components of variation. Coevolutionary processes in bioticterm and human artsterm form a continuum of quantitative differences.

In the predominantly genetic case, evolution of genes for sensory preferences feeds back upon genes for production of aestheticterm stimuli. In the predominantly cultural case, evaluative judgment feeds back on production or performance of new aesthetic entitiesterm through more diffuse mechanisms of learning, cultural evolution, other aestheticterm influence, etc. I do not want to obfuscate the fundamental differences between genetic and cultural mechanisms of evolution. In many contexts, it is essential to differentiate between them in detail (e.g. evolution of bird songterm). However, regardless of the details of the mechanism that creates the historical entrainment between a stimulus and its evaluation, it is coevolutionary feedback between them that generates aesthetic changeterm.

For example, the form and scent of a wild rose are determined by genetic factors (i.e. genes for the production of petals and odor molecules), by environmental factors (i.e. the availability of sun, soil, nutrients, water), and by individual variations (i.e. developmental accidents, disease). The form and content of a painting are partly determined in the same way by the product of genetic factors (i.e. genetic contributions to the artist’s body, sensory and cognitive systems), and other environmental factors (e.g. availability of pigment technologies, materials, etc.), and random individual effects (e.g. chance events, accidents, etc.). Further, a painting’s form and content are also determined by other cultural factors, which are an additional component of environmental variation (e.g. training, technique, stylistic norms coevolved with an artworldterm, etc.), and unique individual factors (i.e. the individual components of style, aestheticterm innovation, psychological state, accidents). The differences in the mechanisms by which these two aesthetic entitiesterm achieved their form are not important to the consideration of whether they should be considered as artworks. Rather, the commonalities in the coevolutionary process shared between bioticterm and human artworldsterm establish their mutual status as artterm.

Even variation in human aestheticsterm production and evaluation has clear genetic components. We would all be comfortable with the conclusion that the artwork of a red-green color deficient painter could be influenced by the genetic variations in visual pigments that result in his seeing colors differently from most other artists and observers. The same would be true for a color blind artterm critic.

Thus, variation in human aestheticterm process does have genetic components, and variations in some biotic artterm, such as some bird songsterm, have elaborate cultural components. We cannot characterize the mechanisms of aesthetic changeterm in bioticterm and human artterm as categorically different. Bioticterm and human artworldsterm differ quantitatively, not qualitatively, in the contribution of genetic or cultural mechanisms to aestheticterm coevolutionary process.

Coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm introduces a new component to the ontological diversity of aesthetic entitiesterm—the relative genetic or cultural basis of coevolutionary aestheticterm process. This new conceptual challenge is actually no greater in magnitude than the well appreciated and accepted diversity in the ontology of current human artterm (Davies 2003 ). Aestheticterm philosophy accepts, indeed celebrates , the ontological diversity of aesthetic entitiesterm as a documentation of the intellectual breadth, relevance, and importance of the discipline. Relative to the ontological extravagance of human aesthetic entitiesterm, the addition of biotic artworldsterm is a rather simple, albeit enormous, conceptual addition to aestheticsterm.

Coevolutionary origin of aestheticterm properties The proposed coevolutionary account of artterm provides insights into a broad array of traditional and new issues in aestheticsterm. For example, coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm implies that the nature of the aestheticterm properties elicited by an aestheticterm entity—an object, part of an organism, artifact, or performance—arise through the history of coevolutionary interactions between aestheticterm stimuli and evaluators within an artworldterm. Aestheticterm properties can originate independently in independent artworldsterm. Thus, coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm is inconsistent with the formalist proposal that aestheticterm properties and values are inherent in the form or properties of an aestheticterm entity (Zangwill 2003 ). Likewise, aestheticterm properties do not arise solely in the aesthetic experienceterm of the observer, as in earlier aestheticterm theories of artterm (Carroll 2008 ). Rather, aestheticterm properties consist of different modes and qualities of interaction between an aestheticterm entity and its evaluation. Aestheticterm properties arise through coevolutionary aestheticterm process within an artterm world. As Walton ( 1993 ) wrote, “Aestheticterm pleasure is not just pleasure in my admiration of something, but it is getting me to admire it”.

In the broadest sense, beautyterm is a positive aesthetic propertyterm that coevolves through positive sensory engagement of an evaluator. Thus, an aestheticterm stimulus is beautiful if it engages the receiver within its own artworldterm through a positive, coevolved aesthetic experienceterm. By positive, I mean that an aesthetic experienceterm of beautyterm leads to associational behavior—the desire for continued association with the stimulus that produces that experience. In this sense, the aesthetic experienceterm of beautyterm is not detached nor disinterested as Kant ( 1987 ) proposed in Critique of Judgment , but actually requires, and coevolves by, the invitation and maintenance of evaluative engagement. Beautyterm differs most fundamentally from other aestheticterm properties in the dominance of the sensory content of the aesthetic experienceterm over other cognitive components (Zangwill 2001 ).

Common criticisms of the proposition that aestheticterm can be informed by nature are that aestheticsterm is about much more than beautyterm, and that the aestheticsterm of nature consists merely of examples of beautyterm. Contrary to this notion, an entire class of aestheticterm, biotic advertisementsterm has evolved to create the opposite of the experience of beautyterm—the experience of coevolved ugliness. Such purposefully repellent aestheticterm stimuli inspire aversion in evaluators—the desire to disengage with, and avoid the stimulus. Not all examples of ugliness have the same negative aesthetic valueterm. The aesthetically repellant is distinguished from the incidentally ugly by its history of coevolution with aestheticterm judgment. 9 Humans and many other organisms have evolved innate revulsion to the odor of rotting flesh, possibly as an adaptation to avoid infection. But this revulsion is not aestheticterm because no features of the process of bacterial decay have coevolved with our revulsion. Rotting flesh is merely repulsive, not aesthetically repulsive.

A vivid bioticterm example of coevolved aestheticterm revulsion is the phenomenon of warning signals in venomous, toxic, and noxious organisms, called aposematismterm (Wickler 1968 ; Ruxton et al. 2004 ). Venomous coral snakes have evolved a striking pattern of brilliant red, yellow, and black bands to communicate to other organisms that they are dangerous and should not be molested. Birds of many species flee in fear from this colorfully contrasting stimulus. In some organisms, fear of these color patterns is an innate, coevolved response. For example, naïve young chickens are innately afraid of artificial coral snake color patterns (Ruxton et al. 2004 , 249). In some species, aversion to an aposematic signal is learned. The vivid color patterns and the aversion to them evolve because organisms that evaluate the brilliant patterns as repellant have a higher chance of surviving, and snakes that display these brilliant and memorable color patterns avoid the risks of engagement. Other aposematic color advertisements include the black-and-yellow stripes of bees and wasps, the red-and-black pattern of the toxic monarch butterfly, the brilliant colors of the toxic poison-dart frogs, the bold patterns of noxious skunks, etc. The rattlesnake’s rattle is an unusual example of an aposematic acoustic advertisement—a coevolved, repellant acoustic display. 10 Because aestheticterm properties originate independently in independent artworldsterm, bioticterm examples of negative aesthetic valueterm cannot be distinguished from beautyterm on the basis of their intrinsic form. Aposematic warning color patterns are similar to those used for mate attraction in some avian artworldsterm, and are commonly viewed as beautiful by humans. The rattlesnake warning rattle is acoustically similar to the whirring chirps that some crickets perform to attract mates. Similar aestheticterm stimuli have coevolved distinctly opposite aestheticterm properties in independent artworldsterm. Thus, positive or negative aesthetic valueterm, or the valence of aesthetic experienceterm, can only be recognized by understanding the coevolved aesthetic experiencesterm of natural observers in those artworldsterm. The nature of the coevolutionary interaction within an artworldterm defines the aestheticterm properties that result.

The coevolution of extra-sensory meaning encoded by aestheticterm stimuli creates the opportunity for the evolution of more complex aestheticterm properties including cute, elegant, garish, delicate, ironic, noble, heroic, kitschy, etc. These more complex aestheticterm properties are contingent upon the existence of meaning in aesthetic experienceterm, but beautyterm need not be. Beautyterm can communicate meaning—as in the possibility that red plumage can signal a bird’s diet and quality, or gold leaf the wealth of an artist’s patron. But beautyterm is not dependent upon meaning to exist. Beautyterm can be arbitrary in form. Thus, red plumage may lack meaning to other birds if the carotenoid pigments are abundant in the diet yet still be arbitrarily attractive. A common pigment could not provide mate quality information, even though the red plumage would still provide an identical sensory experience. A complete description of the aesthetic experienceterm of red plumage would depend upon whether the red pigmentary color evolved under conditions of dietary pigment scarcity, and consequently encodes information about diet and mate quality, or under conditions of abundance and is merely beautiful in absence of encoded meaning. Likewise the presence of gold leaf in an artwork would not communicate investment and inherent value if gold were abundant and cheap, but it would still produce an identical sensory effect. Negative aesthetic valuesterm—coevolved repellence—are also contingent on meaning because simple repellence would not lead to coevolutionary entanglement that is necessary for aestheticterm process to occur.

Because attraction and engagement are the most efficient contexts for the maintenance of coevolutionary process, beautyterm is the overwhelmingly predominant aesthetic propertyterm in both bioticterm and human aestheticsterm. Beautyterm is first and foremost among all aesthetic valuesterm. The predominance of beautyterm in the human and biotic artsterm is not accidental, nor is it the result of an anti-progressive, conservative, reactionary, institutional, or economic forces. Beautyterm is predominant because positive aestheticterm engagement will foster the most persistent, detailed, and profound forms of the coevolutionary interactions that drive all aestheticterm process. In other words, beautyterm is the null, or default, aesthetic propertyterm of artterm.

Conclusion The current discipline of aestheticsterm is organized exclusively around the aestheticterm productions and aesthetic experiencesterm of human beings. This narrow framework has prevented to recognition of generalizable the principles or solutions to philosophical problems of aestheticsterm.

I propose that the disciplines of aestheticsterm, artterm criticism, and artterm history should encompass both humans and non-human organisms, and that they should span evolutionary biology, behavioral biology, psychology, and the humanities. Unlike earlier sociobiology or current evolutionary psychology research programs, this interdisciplinary theoryterm·mth is not a reductionist campaign to explain away the humanities by appeal to the overwhelming (and simplistic) power of natural selection. Rather, this coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm is based on the understanding that the subjective, individual, sensory and cognitive experiences of humans and non-human animals can have (genetic or cultural) evolutionary consequences that are independent of, and not reducible to, natural selection.

Aestheticsterm is an emergent property of communicationterm, sensory biology, cognitive evaluation, choice, and coevolutionary feedback. When these features arise, they cannot be reduced entirely to more fundamental mechanisms or processes. Coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm will provide a new, productive intellectual bridge between evolutionary biology and the humanities. Although coevolutionary aesthetic theoryterm makes the radical proposal that many biotic advertisementsterm are forms of artterm, it simultaneously provides an intellectual framework for understanding the nature of the aestheticterm processes that give rise to human artterm forms.

In the history of cosmology, each step we humans have taken away from being the organizing center of the universe has produced an expansion in our knowledge of reality, and has enhanced human appreciation of our origins and uniqueness. Likewise, restructuring the disciplines of aestheticsterm, artterm criticism, and artterm history to remove human beings from their organizing centers will also foster progress in genuine understanding human artterm, and the unique human contributions to aestheticterm diversity.