Beauty: The Value of Values
- ISBN-10
- 0813913578
- ISBN-13
- 9780813913575
- Series
- Beauty
- Category
- Philosophy
- Pages
- 140
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1991
- Publisher
- University of Virginia Press
- Authors
- Frederick Turner, Frederick W. Turner
Description
In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, Frederick Turner presents a new theory of aesthetics based on the argument that beauty is an objective reality in the universe. He identifies the experience of beauty as a pancultural, neurobiological phenomenon. Drawing on recent work in a wide range of fields--ritual and dramatic performance, the oral tradition, paleoanthropology and human evolution, neurobiology, cosmology and theoretic physics, chaos theory and fractal mathematics--the book describes evolution as a self-organizing, emergent process that generates increasingly advanced forms of self-reflection, and proposes that the experience of beauty is the recognition of this evolutionary process and the reward for participating in it. The experience of aesthetic beauty, Turner says, is an adaptive function that drives evolution through sexual selection. Those individuals most sensitive to beauty survived surface cultural changes, excelled in mating rituals, and were participants in the positive evolution of the species. Turner shows how, as a result, neurotransmitters in the brain respond to certain inherited systems by which we appreciate beauty. Turner also presents the implications for theories of art and literature that follow from his identification of the inherent genres of human aesthetic experience. Forms of art cannot be arbitrary but must be rooted in our biological inheritance. This calls into question theories about modern art, and suggests that modernist culture turned its back on beauty in an attempt to repress and avoid the shame of humanness and our biological nature. This book breaks radically with contemporary positions in psychology, sociology, philosophy, andart, and offers an alternative to present trends in literary and critical theory. It should be of interest to a wide variety of readers, including the artistic community, critical theorists, students of oral traditions, philosophers, and aestheticians.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Beauty by the Book: Seeing Yourself as God Sees You
By Nancy Stafford"Every woman has beauty," says Stafford, "but not everyone sees it. I want you to see it." In Beauty by the Book she bares her heart to readers, laying out the Scriptures, promises, and truths women need to know to find their true value.
-
Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
By Ann PatchettBestselling author and Orange Prize winner Ann Patchett's first work of non-fiction is a book about her long friendship with the critically acclaimed, and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.It is...
-
Edification and Beauty: The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675-1705
By James M. Renihan... in alphabetical order ( inclusion in this list does not imply that they directly addressed the issues presented by Whitsitt ) : William R. Estep , “ Anabaptists and the Rise of the English Baptists ' , The Quarterly Review 28 , no .
-
Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour
By Dita Von TeeseIn Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour, Dita and co-writer Rose Apodaca take you through every step of Dita’s glamour arsenal, and includes friends—masters in makeup, hair, medicine, and exercise as well as some of ...
-
Reading Beauty
By Deborah UnderwoodSet in the universe of the acclaimed Interstellar Cinderella, this empowering bedtime story for girls will entice young readers with its brave heroine, star-studded setting, and hilarious, heartwarming happy ending. • Features brightly ...
-
The CBD Beauty Book
By CICO BooksThe CBD Beauty Book shows you how to incorporate CBD oil into a range of homemade beauty products for your face, body and hair, all made with natural, vegan and nut-free ingredients which are kinder to your skin and to the environment.
-
Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe
By Carole Boston WeatherfordThis verse novel revisits Marilyn's often traumatic early life of foster homes, loneliness, sexual abuse, teen marriage, and follows her into a hard-won, meteoric rise to stardom that brought with it exploitation, pill dependency, and ...
-
The Beauty of Everyday Things
By Soetsu YanagiInspired by the work of the simple artisans Yanagi encountered on his lifelong travels through Japan and Korea, this now-classic book is a heartfelt defence of modest, honest, handcrafted objects, from traditional teacups to jars to ...
-
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
By Peter Englund, Peter GravesThe field hospital at which Sarah is working is situated in the city's main concert hall and has rapidly filled with wounded Belgian soldiers. She writes in her diary: A hundred beds all filled with men in pain give one plenty to think ...
-
Beauty: A Novel
By Sheri S. TepperTransported to the future on her sixteenth birthday, Beauty, a fantastical version of the classic Sleeping Beauty, becomes a 1990s co-ed and enjoys adventures throughout time.