The neural imagination : aesthetic and neuroscientific approaches to the arts / Irving Massey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Massey, Irving.

Series:

Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series.

Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Neurosciences and the arts.

Arts.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 224 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), music

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Aesthetic and neuroscientific approaches to the arts

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Art and technology have been converging rapidly in the past few years; an important example of this convergence is the alliance of neuroscience with aesthetics, which has produced the new field of neuroaesthetics. Irving Massey examines this alliance, in large part to allay the fears of artists and audiences alike that brain science may "explain away" the arts. The first part of the book shows how neuroscience can enhance our understanding of certain features of art. The second part of the book illustrates a humanistic approach to the arts; it is written entirely without recourse to neuroscience, in order to show the differences in methodology between the two approaches. The humanistic style is marked particularly by immersion in the individual work and by evaluation, rather than by detachment in the search for generalizations. In the final section Massey argues that, despite these differences, once the reality of imagination is accepted neuroscience can be seen as the collaborator, not the inquisitor, of the arts.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part 1: The Imagination, Neural

Chapter 1. Background, Purposes, and Limitations of the Inquiry

Chapter 2. Neuroscience and the Visual Arts

Chapter 3. At the Limits of Language

Chapter 4. Music and Language in Dream

Part 2: The Imagination, Plain

Chapter 5. The Three Fields

Part 3: Conclusions

Chapter 6. Ideas and Values

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79345-6

OCLC:

501014427