Art, Music, and Science: An Introduction to Aesthetics

Catalog description

Topics include: art and representation; art and the emotions; beauty, form, and aesthetic experience; and the definition of art. We will focus especially on the visual arts, though we will consider examples drawn from music as well. We will be looking throughout to understand how empirical research bears on traditional topics in the philosophy of art, drawing from empirical perception science, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience. The course will be example driven: We will try out philosophical theories against our lived reactions to many dozens of images of visual art, and against our reactions to a number of music selections.