Overview

The Aesthetic Brain takes readers on an exciting journey through the world of beauty, pleasure, and art. Using the latest advances in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, Anjan Chatterjee investigates how an aesthetic sense is etched into our minds, and explains why artistic concerns feature centrally in our lives. Along the way, Chatterjee addresses such fundamental questions as: What is beauty? Is it universal? How is beauty related to pleasure? What is art? Should art be beautiful? Do we have an instinct for art?Early on, Chatterjee probes the reasons why we find people, places, and even numbers beautiful, highlighting the important relationship between beauty and pleasure. Examining our pleasures allows him to reveal why we enjoy things like food, sex, and money, and how these rewards relate to our aesthetic encounters. Chatterjee's detailed discussion of beauty and pleasure equips readers to confront essential questions about the nature of art, the problems of defining it, and the challenges of interpreting its modern, non-traditional forms. Replete with facts, anecdotes, and analogies, this lively empirical guide to aesthetics offers scientific answers to fundamental questions without deflating the intrinsic wonders of beauty and art in an affordable paperback edition.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anjan Chatterjee, MD (Professor of Neurology, Professor of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.30cm
Weight:   0.299kg
ISBN:  

9780190262013

ISBN 10:   019026201
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   24 September 2015
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

PREFACE INTRODUCTION BEAUTY 1. What is this thing called beauty? 2. Captivating faces 3. The measure of facial beauty 4. The body beautiful 5. How the brain works 6. Brains behind beauty 7. Evolving beauty 8. Landscapes 9. Numbering beauty 10. The illogic of beauty PLEASURE 1. What is this thing called pleasure? 2. Food 3. Sex 4. Money 5. Liking, wanting, learning 6. The logic of pleasure ART 1. What is this thing called art? 2. Art: Biology and culture 3. Descriptive science of the arts 4. Experimental science of the arts 5. Conceptual art 6. The inception of art 7. Messy minds 8. Evolving art 9. Art: A tail or a song? 10. The serendipity of art

Reviews

Chatterjee is a neuroscientist, so readers might expect a mechanistic treatise on beauty constructed from PET scans and clinical trials. But he offers no simple marriage of roses and neurons. To begin filling in the blanks left by neuroscience, he draws from anthropology, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and personal anecdotes. As Chatterjee reminds us, insight is the goal of science and art. His work succeeds by combining both toward a greater appreciation of the human experience. Bryan Bello, Science News Overall, The Aesthetic Brain offers an intriguing overview of the neural and historical underpinnings of beauty and art. Scientific American [Chatterjee] makes a compelling case that although art and beauty may seem nonessential, they epitomize our search for pleasure and meaning in life. Scientific American Mind

[Chatterjee] makes a compelling case that although art and beauty may seem nonessential, they epitomize our search for pleasure and meaning in life. * Scientific American Mind * The Aesthetic Brain offers an intriguing overview of the neural and historical underpinnings of beauty and art. * Scientific American * Chatterjee is a neuroscientist, so readers might expect a mechanistic treatise on beauty constructed from PET scans and clinical trials. But he offers no simple marriage of roses and neurons. To begin filling in the blanks left by neuroscience, he draws from anthropology, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and personal anecdotes. As Chatterjee reminds us, insight is the goal of science and art. His work succeeds by combining both toward a greater appreciation of the human experience. * Bryan Bello, Science News * In this book, Dr Anjan Chatterjee. . . introduces us to the emerging field of neuroasthetics. . . In his cogent review of the long history of human artifact-making art, he carefully considers the many definitions of aesthetics, art, and beauty. . . The author comes to his persuasive conclusion after having carefully examined prehistoric art objects, the history of art, evolutionary biology, brain anatomy, and functional studies. * Roy G. Fitzgerald, MD, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Vol. 76, October 2015 *

Author Information

Anjan Chatterjee, M.D., is Professor of Neurology, and a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Center for Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the editorial boards of Empirical Studies of the Arts; Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology; Behavioural Neurology; Neuropsychology; Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience; European Neurology; The Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society; American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience; Brain Science; and Policy Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology. In 2002, he was awarded the Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology by the American Academy of Neurology. He is President of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics and President of the Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Society. His neurology practice focuses on patients with cognitive disorders while his research involves spatial cognition, language, ethics, and aesthetics. He has published more than 125 peer-reviewed papers and is the coeditor of Neuroethics in Practice: Medicine, Mind, and Society.

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