ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 2, Spring 2015
Haoa 2013); ceremonies, such as Karelian itkuvirsi, laments sung by women during funerals or weddings to express sorrow at someone's departure (Tolbert 1990);
medicinal and spiritual healing rituals, such as the False Face tradition among the
Iroquois Six Nations, wearing masks that embody a spirit to aid in healing ceremonies (Fenton 1987) and information and entertainment, such as West African
griots and griottes, story-tellers and musicians who impart knowledge about history, social occasions like births, weddings and deaths (Lott 2002) and sagas and
tales imparted worldwide around campfires to whole villages. The biggest objection to Dissanayake’s argument has been that “making special” is a vague notion,
and her characterization of aesthetics into four criteria of aesthetic qualities, tangible relevance, evocative resonance, accessibility coupled with strikingness, and
satisfying fullness, is insufficient. In these terms, as Davies writes, a video of our
child’s university graduation would count as an aesthetic experience, though many
would not think of a graduation in aesthetic terms (Davies 2005, 2012). I am not
completely convinced because one could imagine this experience as aesthetic for a
parent because it could be a beautiful, comforting and sublime experience, making
the parent think back happily on yesteryears and brim with pleasure awaiting to see
the child’s ventures in the future. The important point is that the definition of art,
and jointly, aesthetics, is unsettled, and is sometimes a subjective matter in fringe
cases. The main point about Dissanayake’s argument is about artification as an
adaptation, which is why she has reworded “making special” for artification (for
more, see Dissanayake’s defence against criticism (Dissanayake 2014b)). We can
be certain that sculpture, literature, painting, body art and dance are art, and if empirical and theoretical evidence supports these first evolving as adaptations for
group bonding, relaxation and psychological well-being, Dissanayake’s characterizations of what count as aesthetic are largely irrelevant to the claim about artification as an adaptation. Because of the support from neuroscience, I find it difficult
to disbelieve artification is not a series of adaptations, in which two of the most
important were the two Dissanayake identifies for psychological health and social
stability.
Denis Dutton’s argument (developed over (2000) (2003) (2009) (2010)), following
Miller (2000) (2001), is that artification originated chiefly from sexual selection
because artworks are indicating phenomena. Sexual selection produces opposing
characteristics to those natural selection produces because the salient factors which
determine how sexual selection operates are different from the salient factors
which determine natural selection (as Darwin used the term; good examples of different interpretations of what sexual selection produces are in Dawkins (2009) and
Prum (2012) (2013), for an in-depth exploration, see Cronin (1993)). In sexual selection, an individual attempts to impress a mate or fight away rivals and does not
merely attempt to survive against predators and the elements of nature. Subsequently, sexual selection produces indicating phenomena, such as colourful bird
plumages, lion manes, and mating dances. From Zahavi (1975) and Zahavi and
Zahavi (1997), the majority of indicators can be interpreted as characteristics
which convey the suitability of a potential mating partner by acting as a form of
handicap (Prum offers a differing view). Indicating characteristics, such as the ever-referenced peacock’s tail, as popular to evolutionists as to peahens, act as a
message to a mating partner by showing that a peacock has access to resources to
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