Dan Durso

Aesthetic hedonism, the view that the value of an artwork is determined by its pleasure-inducing properties, is largely regarded as the default theory of aesthetic value. However, aesthetic hedonism has significant challenges as well. One notable challenge points to the high value we ascribe to some works of art that arouse negative or unpleasant sensations, like Picasso’s _Guernica_. Relatedly, the paradox of painful art points out that some of us seek out art that evokes unpleasant sensations yet avoid unpleasant sensations in real life. If this claim is correct, then it appears that aesthetic hedonism is false. With this project, I draw a parallel between the paradox of painful art and a neurobiological puzzle (the cocaine puzzle), which asks how cocaine induces hedonic sensations even though it does not directly activate hedonic neural mechanisms. I ultimately argue that the neural mechanisms that can resolve the cocaine puzzle can potentially resolve the paradox of painful art. Importantly, this response to the paradox of painful art also defends aesthetic hedonism since it highlights underlying hedonic mechanisms that could become active even in the face of painful art.

Vision Language Models (VLMs), like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, have raised significant concerns regarding authorship and whether AI-generated images devalue artistic practices and traditions. Recently, some have argued that VLMs should be viewed as another tool that artists use to generate their creative outputs. I defend this position and expand on it by introducing an account of agency that demonstrates that only biological agents, at least for now, possess the necessary powers to be responsible for the act of creation (for example, the capacity to realize autonomous goal-directed actions and manipulate affordances). I ultimately argue that although VLMs afford artists the ability to output high-quality images with minimal technical skill, creating artworks that are artistically valued using VLMs will require significant ingenuity. Therefore, in my view, concerns that this new tool will blur the lines of authorship and undermine artistic practices and traditions are unwarranted.

One of the more pressing questions regarding phenomenal consciousness concerns its teleological function. For example, is there a purpose for having qualitative experiences when it seems at least conceivable to live as a zombie void of rich sensory experiences? In this paper, I will discuss recent findings in the emerging field of neuroaesthetics, which could form a novel framework for addressing what I will refer to as the teleological problem of phenomenal consciousness. While still in developmental stages, neuroaesthetics is moving beyond its early incarnations as a science that exclusively studies how the human brain responds to artworks, and into a science that studies how and, importantly, why we have sensory and qualitative experiences. I will ultimately argue that neuroaesthetics, when scaffolded by evolutionary principles, is poised to contribute empirically grounded responses to the teleological problem of phenomenal consciousness.

Standard accounts of artifacts claim that they are objects purposefully designed by an agent (or agents) to realize a function. Art objects have often been regarded as functionless entities; thus, many have disqualified them from possessing artifact status. With this paper, I defend the view that art objects (at least paintings and sculptures) are, in fact, artifacts since they serve hedonic functions. In my view, declarations for the functionless nature of art objects are due to an epistemically impoverished position regarding neural responses to artworks. I introduce recent research from neuroaesthetics, the study of the neural underpinnings of aesthetic experiences, which demonstrates that art objects act as a catalyst that stimulates the neural reward circuitry which in turn produces heightened hedonic sensations. These hedonic sensations, I claim, are the function of art objects, art appreciators seek them out and artists desire to induce them.

Researchers administered MDMA (known as ecstasy) to octopuses and observed their behavior. Due, at least in part, to serotonin transport systems nearly identical to human ones, octopuses on ecstasy behave in a prosocial manner. This observation suggests that neurochemicals, like serotonin, which are conserved across taxa, contribute to the realization of some psychological states. Since standard functionalism claims that not only can psychological states be multiply realized, but that psychological states are also autonomous from neural states, then this eccentric experiment reveals an important challenge. Using recent research in neuroscience and a mechanistic account of multiple realization, I argue that certain cases of multiply realized psychological states always include specific neurochemicals (i.e. neurotransmitters), and this undermines the kind of multiple realization that is needed to warrant autonomy. I conclude that the multiple realization of psychological states does not guarantee autonomy from neural states and that the functionalist claims for autonomy are not empirically justified.

Following the Symbol Grounding Problem, it is generally held that any natural language system, in order to produce meaningful outputs, must depend on some additional system or ground. Given their near-flawless linguistic performance, some have suggested that Large Language Models (LLMs) may possess a form of semantic “understanding” and therefore must be grounded in some respect. With this project, however, I avoid taking a position as to whether LLMs are grounded; rather, I point out that LLMs cannot be sensorimotor grounded, or grounded in motor and sensory responses, which is the fundamental ground of the human language system. I support this claim by drawing on research in neurosemiotics and embodied semantics, which indicates that at its core, human semantic content is rooted in worldly interactions and sensory responses, which are unavailable to disembodied LLMs. Thus, even if LLMs are grounded in some way, they will be differently grounded from the human language system, and this uncommon ground ultimately presents a persistent barrier that prevents both language systems from achieving reliable compatibility and mutual understanding.

According to New Mechanists, most phenomena, natural or otherwise, are actively brought about by mechanisms. However, some have suggested that the phenomenon for which a mechanism is responsible could be a disposition or a capacity to realize a teleological function. If this latter account is accepted, then it appears that some inactive objects or entities (including biological traits) can be considered mechanisms. This inclusion would be noteworthy, since inactive objects have typically been denied mechanism status within this ontology. In this paper, I defend the position that inactive objects with the capacity to realize a teleological function are mechanisms, and should coexist with the received view that mechanisms underlie or produce some phenomenon. In my view, expanding a new mechanical ontology to include inactive, function-realizing objects will not only clarify the fundamental role mechanisms play within the causal and physical structure of the world, but will also further establish new mechanical philosophy as an ontological program that can contribute to both scientific and metaphysical inquiry.

Aesthetic hedonism, the view that the value of an artwork is determined by its pleasure-inducing properties, is largely regarded as the default theory of aesthetic value. However, aesthetic hedonism has significant challenges as well. One notable challenge points to the high value we ascribe to some works of art that arouse negative or unpleasant sensations, like Picasso’s Guernica. Relatedly, the paradox of painful art points out that some of us seek out art that evokes unpleasant sensations yet avoid unpleasant sensations in real life. If this claim is correct, then it appears that aesthetic hedonism is false. With this project, I draw a parallel between the paradox of painful art and a neurobiological puzzle (the cocaine puzzle), which asks how cocaine induces hedonic sensations even though it does not directly activate hedonic neural mechanisms. I ultimately demonstrate that the neural mechanisms that can resolve the cocaine puzzle can also resolve the paradox of painful art. Importantly, this response to the paradox of painful art also defends aesthetic hedonism since it highlights underlying hedonic mechanisms that become active even in the face of painful art.

One of the more pressing questions regarding phenomenal consciousness concerns its teleological function. For example, is there a purpose for having qualitative experiences when it seems at least conceivable to live as a zombie void of rich sensory experiences? In this paper, I will discuss recent findings in the emerging field of neuroaesthetics, which could form a novel framework for addressing what I will refer to as the teleological problem of phenomenal consciousness. While still in developmental stages, neuroaesthetics is moving beyond its early incarnations as a science that exclusively studies how the human brain responds to artworks, and into a science that studies how and, importantly, why we have sensory and qualitative experiences. I will ultimately argue that neuroaesthetics, when scaffolded by evolutionary principles, is poised to contribute empirically grounded responses to the teleological problem of phenomenal consciousness.

The hard problem of consciousness represents the challenge of elucidating how and why physical brain processes give rise to rich qualitative and subjective experiences. In this paper, I introduce an empirical account of aesthetic experience developed by neuroaesthetics researchers and highlight that the sensory and evaluative properties typically attributed to phenomenal consciousness mirror, or are fungible to, this empirical account of aesthetic experience. Thus, the hard problem of consciousness can also be thought of as the hard problem of aesthetic experience. However, even though these concepts mirror one another, I argue that the concept of phenomenal consciousness ought to be replaced by this empirical account of aesthetic experience. I defend this position on the grounds that this empirical account of aesthetic experience is conceptually more precise and that its proximate (how) and ultimate (why) explanations for the existence of rich qualitative experiences do not require metaphysical speculations that extend beyond the reach of a physicalist ontology. Thus, on my replacement thesis, a resolution to the hard problem is within the reach of the material sciences.

Neuroaesthetics initially emerged as a branch of neuroscience that studies the neural responses to artworks and related aesthetic experiences. Recent analyses, however, frame the neural study of aesthetics as an expanding research program that also includes the neural study of sensory preferences and hedonics more broadly. Thus, on this expanded account, neuroaesthetics also studies the neural mechanisms responsible for the realization of sensory responses, as well as how and why these responses attain hedonic value. While neuroaesthetics has attracted growing interest within neuroscience and psychology, many of its key developments remain underrecognized in other disciplines, particularly those working outside of art and aesthetics. The goal of this project is to bridge this epistemic gap by introducing neuroaesthetics to a wider philosophical audience. I provide an account of its brief yet noteworthy history and, importantly, demonstrate that neuroaesthetics, as its scope expands into a science of hedonics and sensory valuations, can be of interest to philosophers working on a range of issues that do not typically overlap with the study of art and aesthetics.