Biological signaling and art theory (from the archive)

Theories on art from evolutionary psychology tend to take the arrogance and humbug out of philosophies of art. For example, art is seen as an extension of sexual selection, which itself is an extension of the more practical and efficient natural selection. Denis Dutton has done excellent work in examining, with very clear writing, the origin of art. These studies got me thinking about how to distinguish individual-selection and group-selection in art, which has not been much written about.

Individualistic art can be seen as the personal ornament of the individual artist, which supposedly displays the intelligence, skill, and great leisure and richness of the artist, as a signal of the fitness of the artist, especially (and originally) in the mating game (think of Picasso). Whereas art created for the group can signal the fitness and power of the group (think of elaborate religious art), which can then reward the individual artists for their great affirmations of the group, and more importantly enhance the group in competition with other groups.

We might then say that since group-selection is the central unit of selection in humans, as E. O. Wilson has recently affirmed, group-selection would define and create the higher art. History seems to show this as true with the greatest art usually defined as art that affirms what the group holds most sacred. 

This kind of explanation brings art theory back to biology, back to life, and forward to the extension and evolution of life---we can then better see the wild abstractions of art philosophy through the ages for what they were, often empty signaling on the part of individual philosophers or artists.  We are looking for truth and reality regarding art, which is perhaps is our form of signaling.