The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are

The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are - Paperback

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The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are
  • The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are
The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are - Paperback

The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are - Paperback

by Alva Noë
$20.47
$20.47

Book Overview

by Alva Noë (Author)

Why human nature is an aesthetic phenomenon--and why we need art and philosophy to understand ourselves

In The Entanglement, philosopher Alva Noë explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, arguing that we have greatly underestimated what this entangled reality means for understanding human nature.

Life supplies art with its raw materials, but art, Noë argues, remakes life by giving us resources to live differently. Our lives are permeated with the aesthetic. Indeed, human nature is an aesthetic phenomenon, and art--our most direct and authentic way of engaging the aesthetic--is the truest way of understanding ourselves. All this suggests that human nature is not a natural phenomenon. Neither biology, cognitive science, nor AI can tell a complete story of us, and we can no more pin ourselves down than we can fix or settle on the meaning of an artwork. Even more, art and philosophy are the means to set ourselves free, at least to some degree, from convention, habit, technology, culture, and even biology. In making these provocative claims, Noë explores examples of entanglement--in artworks and seeing, writing and speech, and choreography and dancing--and examines a range of scientific efforts to explain the human.

Challenging the notions that art is a mere cultural curiosity and that philosophy has been outmoded by science, The Entanglement offers a new way of thinking about human nature, the limits of natural science in understanding the human, and the essential role of art and philosophy in trying to know ourselves.

Author Biography

Alva Noë is professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is a member of the Center for New Media, the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and the Program in Critical Theory. His many books include Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature and Learning to Look: Dispatches from the Art World.

Number of Pages: 288
Dimensions: 0.72 x 8 x 5.25 IN
Publication Date: February 25, 2025
ISBN9780691249575
Author Alva Noë
PublisherPrinceton University Press
GenrePhilosophy
FormatPaperback
PublishedFebruary 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages288
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature - Paperback

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About Alva Noë

Alva Noë is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. A graduate of Columbia University, he holds a B.Phil. from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Noë is the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim fellowship and is a weekly contributor to NPR's science blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture.

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