Beauty: a bioform of storytelling?

Autori

  • Stefano Calabrese Università d Modena e Reggio Emilia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/10652

Parole chiave:

beauty, aesthetic perception, prototypicality, evolutionary fitness, period-eye, rewarding system, peak shift, storytelling

Abstract

According to twentieth-century experimental psychology, beauty consisted mainly in the recognition of a host of prototypical forms, so perceiving something average and generic aroused a sense of reassuring familiarity. The recent discovery of the principles of Darwinism, above all by neuro-scientists and bio-neurologists, on the other hand, suggested the opposite, namely that beauty is a form of evolutionary fitness: a sort of storytelling used firstly in the animal kingdom, then by mankind up to the Late Stone Age, in which males tried to persuade a female to mate. The recent theory of the so-called ‘period-eye’ has shown the constant influence of our surroundings on our perception of what is beautiful, confirming the neo-Darwin theories, in the light of historical and social mechanisms, not only bio-evolutionary.

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Pubblicato

23-12-2018

Come citare

Calabrese, S. (2018). Beauty: a bioform of storytelling?. ENTHYMEMA, (22), 136–149. https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/10652

Fascicolo

Sezione

Saggi
Ricevuto 2018-09-20
Accettato 2018-12-08
Pubblicato 2018-12-23