Art as Communication: Aesthetics, Evolution, and Signaling

Is art a form of communication? If so, what does art express or represent? How should we interpret the meaning of works created by more than one artist? Is art an adaptation, via natural selection? In what ways is art similar to--and different from--language? Art as Communication: Aesthetics, Evolution, and Signaling employs information theory, the theory of evolution, and the newly developed sender-receiver model of communication to reason about art, aesthetic behavior, and its communicative nature. Shawn Simpson considers whether art, from a biological point of view, is the province of only humans or whether animals might reasonably be said to create art. Examining the work of evolutionary biologists, art theorists, linguists, and philosophers--including Charles Darwin, Stephen Davies, H. Paul Grice, and others--he addresses how well different theories of communication explain meaning and expression in art and argues that art is much more continuous with other forms of communication than previously thought.

Shawn Simpson is visiting lecturer in the department of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.