Aesthetic sensitivity, body and affordances: an inactive-ecological approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32735/S0718-22012026000623899Keywords:
Aesthetic sensiviy, experience, enactivism, affordancesAbstract
The human being is in constant interaction with the sociomaterial environment according to valuations oriented by aesthetic sensibility to act according to identity and bodily capacities. This paper proposes an embodied approach to aesthetic sensibility to illustrate how environmental affordances shape the aesthetic experience in the everyday encounter with the world. Thus, we contribute to overcome the omission of the bodily and interactive processes inherent to this type of human sensibility. Based on John Dewey's work on art and aesthetic experience, we place the latter at the core of existence. Likewise, we make use of concepts from the enactive-ecological approach to cognition to relate the living body, aesthetic sensibility and affordances. In short, we argue that aesthetic sensibility is structural to experience and represents the drive to find ourselves and others through connection with the world.
Downloads
References
Arteaga, Alex (2017). Embodied and Situated Aesthetics. An enactive approach to a cognitive notion of aesthetics. Artnodes, 20, 20-27.
Colombetti, Giovanna (2018). Enacting Affectivity. En: de Bruin Leon y Gallagher Shaun. The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford University Press.
Crippen, Matthew y Schulkin, Jay (2020). Mind Ecologies: body, brain, and world. Columbia University Press.
Chemero, Anthony (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances. Ecology Psychology, 15 (2): 181-195.
Dewey, John (2008). Conducta y naturaleza. Introducción a la psicología sociológica. Rafael Castillo D. (Trad.). FCE.
________ (2005). Art as experience. Penguin Group.
Di Paolo, Ezequiel; Buhrmann, Thomas; y Barandiaran, Xavier (2017). Sensorimotor life. An enactive proposal. 1ª Edición. Oxford University Press.
Dreon, Roberta (2024). The Arts are Made of (Intelligent) Habits. Aisthesis 17(1): 135-153.
________ (2022). Human Landscapes. Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology. Sunny press.
Forlè, Francesca (2018). The ‘’How’’ and ‘’What’’ of aesthetic experience. Some reflections based on Noë’s Strange Tools. Art and Human nature. En: Francesca Forlè y Elisabetta Sacchi. Phenomenology and mind. Perception and aesthetic experience. p. 23. Firenze university press.
Fuchs, Thomas (2019). Ecology of the brain. The phenomenology and biology of the embodied mind. 1ª Edición. Oxford University Press.
Gallagher, Shaun (2017). Enactivist interventions. Rethinking the mind. 1ª edición. Oxford University Press.
Gallagher, Shaun, Zahavi, Dan (2013). La mente fenomenológica. Jorba, M., traductor. 1ª edición. Alianza Editorial.
Gibson, James J. (1979). The Ecological approach to visual Perception. Psychology Press.
Heras-Escribano, Manuel (2019). The Philosophy Affordances. Cham, Palgrave Macmillan [ Links ]
Johnson, Mark (2018). The aesthetics of meaning and thought. The bodily roots of philosophy science, morality and art. The University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, Mark y Schulkin, Jay (2023). Mind in Nature. John Dewey, cognitive science, and a naturalistic philosophy for living, 171-180. MIT Press.
Kaüfer, Stephan y Chemero, Anthony (2021). Phenomenology. An introduction. 1ª edición. Polity Press.
Menatti, Laura y Casado da Rocha, Antonio (2016). Landscape and health: connecting psychology, aesthetics, and philosophy through the concept of affordance. Front. Psychol. 7:571. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00571
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2012). Phenomenology of perception. Routledge press.
Nancy, Jean-Luc (2010). Corpus. Patricio Burgos (Traductor). Arenalibros.
Noë, Alva (2012). Varieties of presence. 1ª Edición. Harvard University Press.
________ (2010). Out of our heads. Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. Hill and Wang.
Parsons, Michel J. (2002). Cómo entendemos el arte: una perspectiva cognitivo-evolutiva de la experiencia estética. Paidos Iberica Ediciones S A.
Raja, Vicente, Gastélum, Melina (2022) La estética de las affordances: diseño, arte y entorno. En: Heras-Escribano, Manuel, Lobo, Lorena, Vega, Jesús. Affordances y ciencia cognitiva. Introducción, teoría y aplicaciones, p. 326. Tecnos.
Reddy, Vasudevi (2009). How infants know minds. Harvard University Press.
Rietveld, Erik; Dennys, Damian; y Van Westen, Marten (2018). Ecological-Enactive Cognition as engaging with a field of relevant affordances: The Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF). En: de Bruin, Leon y Gallagher, Shaun. The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition. Oxford University Press.
Sepulveda-Pedro, Miguel (2023). Enactive Cognition in Place. Sense-making as the development of ecological norms. Palgrave Macmillan.
Shapiro, Lawrence y Spaulding, Shannon (2024). The Routledge handbook of embodied cognition (second edition). Taylor & Francis Group.
Sheets-Stones, Maxine (2011). The Primacy of movement. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Thompson, Evan (2007). Mind in Life. Biology, phenomenology and the sciences of life. 1ª Edición. Harvard University Press.
Trevarthen, Colwyn (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: research, theory, and clinical applications. J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 3-48.
Varela, Francisco (1996). Ética y Acción. C. Santa Cruz, traductor. Dolmen Ediciones S.A.
Varela, Francisco; Thompson, Evan; and Rosch, Eleanor (2011). De cuerpo presente. Las ciencias cognitivas y la experiencia humana. C. Gardini, traductor. 1ª edición. Gedisa.
Withagen, Rob; De Poel, H. J.; Araújo, D.; & Pepping, G. J. (2012). Affordances can invite behavior: Reconsidering the relationship between affordances and agency. New ideas in psychology, 30(2), 250-258.
Withagen, Rob y Caljouw, Simone (2017). Aldo van Eyck’s Playgrounds: Aesthetics, Affordances, and Creativity. Front. Psychol. 8:1130. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01130.
________ (2016). The end of sitting: an empirical study on working in an office of the future. Sports Med. 46, 1019-1027. doi: 10.1007/s40279-015-0448-y
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Bárbara Valdés, Antonio López
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
