4ESTHETICS? 4E/Situated Approaches to (Music) Aesthetics: Challenges and Perspectives

In recent years, prompted by developments in cognitive science that have questioned classical head-bound conceptions of the mind and reconceptualised cognitive processes, the range of possibilities for understanding musical meaning and musical experience has expanded significantly. Cognition has been theorised as embodied, embedded in the environment, extended beyond the boundaries of the body, enacted by a relational process comprising brain, body, and environment, and distributed among several agents rather than confined to isolated individuals.
A significant body of theoretical and empirical work has evolved addressing music aesthetics from a corresponding situated/4E perspective, constituting a promising research program. However, these approaches also face some fundamental challenges and serious critique.
Against this background, this workshop is intended to promote discussion on possibilities for a mutual enrichment between situated/4E approaches to aesthetics and philosophical aesthetics. Within this context, the situated/4E framework might also be discussed as a possible mediator between empirical and philosophical aesthetics. To this end, this workshop brings together scholars that do philosophical work in the field of aesthetics within a situated/4E framework, that use empirical methods to examine aesthetic experience of music within a situated/4E framework, and that explore bodily and environmental resources in aesthetic experience (of music) without explicitly relying on or even criticizing situated/4E approaches.

Contributors:

Georg Bertram (Freie Universität Berlin)
Eric Clarke (Oxford University)
Tom Cochrane (Flinders University, Adeleide)
Joerg Fingerhut (Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Christian Grüny (Universität Witten/Herdecke)
Simon Høffding (University of Oslo)
Jenny Judge (New York University)
Jin Hyun Kim (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Joel Krueger (University of Exeter)
Erik Myin (University of Antwerpen)
Lara Pearson (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt/Main)
Andrea Schiavio (University of Graz)
Tamara Turner (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin)
Matthias Vogel (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
Sebastian Wallot (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt/Main)

Organizers:
Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt/Main) Christoph Seibert (University of Music Karlsruhe; Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt/Main)

Guests are welcome. Since we can only provide a limited amount of seats, please call for registration 069 8300 479-201.