Bücher von Alva Noe

"In The Entanglement, philosopher Alva Noèe explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, and argues that we have radically underestimated the significance of this long recognized but underappreciated reality, what he refers to as the "entanglement." The core of The Entanglement is the idea that human existence is inextricably aesthetic and philosophical. In the first half of the book, Noèe offers a detailed examination of pictures and seeing, writing and speech, and choreography and dancing, which serve as case studies and the base in which the phenomenon of entanglement is set. In later chapters, Noèe deepens this analysis by exploring the nature of the aesthetic itself, and its place in our lives, examining what the entanglement can teach us about science, and, in particular, the project of applying science in the domain of the human. In these later chapters he covers a range of topics, including sex, gender, and the body, psychology and AI, the problem of style, and the nature of 'nature.' Drawing on his work in perception, consciousness, and the philosophy of art, Noèe offers a new model for thinking about the nature of the human, the limits to what a natural science of the human can do on its own, and the irreplaceable importance of art and philosophy for the larger project of studying and understanding ourselves"--

A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselvesIn Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë argues that our obsession with works of art has gotten in the way of understanding how art works on us. For Noë, art isn't a phenomenon in need of an explanation but a mode of research, a method of investigating what makes us human--a strange tool. Art isn't just something to look at or listen to--it is a challenge, a dare to try to make sense of what it is all about. Art aims not for satisfaction but for confrontation, intervention, and subversion. Through diverse and provocative examples from the history of art-making, Noë reveals the transformative power of artistic production. By staging a dance, choreographers cast light on the way bodily movement organizes us. Painting goes beyond depiction and representation to call into question the role of pictures in our lives. Accordingly, we cannot reduce art to some natural aesthetic sense or trigger; recent efforts to frame questions of art in terms of neurobiology and evolutionary theory alone are doomed to fail.By engaging with art, we are able to study ourselves in profoundly novel ways. In fact, art and philosophy have much more in common than we might think. Reframing the conversation around artists and their craft, Strange Tools is a daring and stimulating intervention in contemporary thought.