La cornacchia e l'albero

Biologia dell'esperienza estetica

Felice Cimatti

pp. 27-41

in: Aesthetic experience in the evolutionary perspective, Rivista di estetica 54, 2013.

Abstract

That non-human animals show genuine aesthetic experiences is (yet?) controversial. On the contrary, it seems that there is no doubt that human animal can do it. In this paper, however, we ask whether Homo sapiens has actually the biological capacity to make a truly aesthetic experience. The starting point for this analysis is the most important characteristic of the human species, the innate faculty of language. If you take into account the relationship between human body/mind and language is not at all obvious that Homo sapiens could really prove a genuine aesthetic experience. On the contrary, such an experience would be biologically available only to non-human animals.