Denis Dutton is a philosophy professor and the editor of Arts & Letters Daily. In his book The Art Instinct, he suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty.
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There's a mini media blitz underway promoting Denis Dutton's new book The Art Instinct.
As I reported yesterday, Republican Representative Frank Wolf was being pestered by questions from volunteers with the Judy Feder campaign, and Wolf's staffers physically attacked the volunteers.
In yesterday's Washington Post, I reviewed The Art Instinct, a new book by Denis Dutton that uses evolutionary psychology to explain the odd human obsession with making art:
I find the book is confused because he conflates all forms of "artistic achievement" at least in part because he is a professor of literature and there are problems with making that part of an evo-psych argument.
Brave attempt though.
I think Nabokov would have loved this book. However with beauty being relative to culture and other non-scientific factors this argument would be a tough sell to a scientist.