Abstract

Should we hold that the natural history of our artistic capacities and responses is relevant to aesthetic judgement in the way that the history of making of particular artworks is? Distinguishes between what is explanatory within the aesthetic, and what is merely explanatory of the aesthetic. Facts about the natural history of artistic capacities and responses are more apt to fall into the first second than into the first. But there are odd cases where the facts of natural history do impinge on what we might call the space of aesthetic reasons.