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Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty
Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty
Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty
The famous nineteenth-century psycho- criticized in light of the prevailing plural- cians have focused their attention on the
physicist Gustav Fechner was also a poet ism of artistic styles. To make matters analysis of artworks. For example, Rama-
and art critic. Armed with the tools of more complicated, there is no consensus chanran [7], Zeki [8], and Kandel [9]
science, Fechner sought to reconcile his on the nature of beauty. Kant’s under- have presented case studies focusing on
various interests. He would doubtless be standing of beauty was predicated on an classical Indian art, American and Euro-
interested by technological developments attitude of ‘‘disinterested contemplation’’ pean modernists, and the Viennese Seces-
in neuroscience that have revealed the [2], whereas Friedrich Nietzsche roundly sionists. Explicitly or implicitly, these
operations of neurons at cellular resolution dismissed this notion and underlined the studies aim to extract rules that would
and have enabled us to peer almost impact of sensual attraction [3]. For the lead to a practical definition of beauty,
unnoticed into each other’s working poet John Keats, beauty equaled truth [4], connecting features of objects and neural
brains. But can these tools advance our while Stendhal, the French novelist, char- activity. Zeki, for instance, argues that the
understanding of aesthetics beyond Fech- acterized beauty as the ‘‘promise of power of Alexander Calder’s sculptures
ner’s insights [1]? The nascent field of happiness’’ [5]. More recently, Elaine derives from the black-and-white moving
neuroaesthetics claims it can. Here we Scarry described beauty as an urge to parts, potent activators of the brain’s
consider what questions this new field is repeat [6]. While each of these theories is motion-processing center.
poised to answer. We underscore the respected, not one is universally accepted. It may be no coincidence that the art
importance of distinguishing between Partly this diversity of opinions is connect- these three authors hold up relates to the
beauty, art, and perception—terms often ed to the different functions that beauty culture in which they were each raised.
conflated by ‘‘aesthetics’’—and identify holds within various philosophical systems, One potential danger in aesthetic projects
adjacent fields of neuroscience such as being sometimes viewed in connection is to universalize one’s subjective convic-
sensation, perception, attention, reward, with epistemology or with ethics. One tions and assume that an experience of
learning, memory, emotions, and decision goal of neuroaesthetics is to get to the beauty is common to all. Projecting from
making, where discoveries will likely be bottom of the problem of artistic beauty. individual subjective experience is decep-
informative. How can this be accomplished? tive, for there is ample evidence that
Experiences of beauty are often deeply notions of beauty vary between cultures
Aesthetics and Neuroscience moving, and their importance to the and are mutable even within a culture—
human condition invites a neuroscientific just think of fast-changing trends in fashion.
Aesthetics has a complex history. The explanation. But while deep emotional Moreover, the equation (art = beauty) rests
term derives from the Greek ‘‘perception’’ reactions are often associated with beauty, on shaky ground. Throughout history,
and was coined by Alexander Baumgarten being moved does not always indicate an artists have created deeply moving art-
in 1750 as the study of sensory knowledge. instance of beauty. Consider hearing work that is emphatically not beautiful;
But following Immanuel Kant’s Critique of about a disaster, celebrating a sports Goya’s Saturn Devouring One of His Sons
Judgment in 1790 [2], aesthetics began victory, or smelling a long-forgotten scent. (Figure 1) provides a famous historical
focusing on the concept of beauty, in These experiences are better described as example. Large swaths of twentieth-
nature and in art. During the nineteenth ‘‘sympathy,’’ ‘‘elation,’’ and ‘‘memory,’’ century art have greatly expanded—or
century, the term became largely synony- rather than experiences of beauty. If entirely disavowed—notions of beauty.
mous with the philosophy of art. These neuroaesthetics is to be concerned specif- Such distinctions may seem picky, but
three connotations—perception, beauty, ically with beauty, it must draw distinc- interdisciplinary work such as neuroaes-
art—point in different directions but are tions between mechanisms for such dispa- thetics relies on shared principles, and
often conflated in neuroaesthetics. rate reactions. Since many experiences of requires heightened attention to concep-
Kant is a preferred philosopher among beauty are related to art, neuroaestheti- tual clarity.
neuroaestheticians, no doubt because of
his towering stature in the history of
Citation: Conway BR, Rehding A (2013) Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty. PLoS Biol 11(3):
Western thought. He pursued a universal- e1001504. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001504
ist approach to beauty, an appealing Published March 19, 2013
concept for neuroscientists because it
Copyright: ß 2013 Conway, Rehding. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the
suggests a discrete neural basis. But Kant’s Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
concept of beauty has been severely medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant 0918064). The NSF had no role
in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Essays articulate a specific perspective on a topic of
broad interest to scientists. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: bconway@wellesley.edu
References
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