Art and the Mind
Résumé
Works of art are cognitive devices aimed at the production of rich cognitive effects. Thus it can be argued, in the light of what is known about human cognition, that aesthetic experience is a by-product of the exercise of more fundamental cognitive faculties such as perception and imagination. Works of art, on this view, are never grasped directly. Rather, in an aesthetic experience, a subject directly perceives a certain object or event (a canvas, a display of pixels, a series of sounds), and this perception gives rise to a cognitive activity of a special, aesthetic type. Theories of art should thus address questions about the interplay of the cognitive faculties. Papers are invited on all aspects of the relation between perception, imagination, the emotions, and aesthetic experience, and on the way in which findings in cognitive science can shed new light on art, its appreciation, and its evaluation.