A Darwinian theory of beauty

What, exactly, is beauty? This question has been occupying the minds of philosophers, anthropologists, art critics and ordinary people alike for centuries of human history. Denis Laurence Dutton (1944 – 2010) was a philosopher of art, web entrepreneur, and media activist presenting a provocative Darwinian theory of beauty in his excellent TED talk ,In his book The Art Instinct (2010) Dutton opposes the view that art appreciation is culturally learned, claiming instead that art appreciation stems from evolutionary adaptions made during the Pleistocene.

So the next time you shout Wow! For seeing something lets say beautifull! don’t be so sure it’s just your culture or mass media influencing you. perhaps our gaze is layered with a kind of ancestral remembrance.

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