Search results

1

Krytyka literacka jako dobór płciowy

100%

Potkański J.

Świat i Słowo

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2010

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vol. 2010, nr 1(14)

199-206

EN

In the article I inquire relations between contemporary literature and literary criticism, as a central metaphor employing Darwin’s idea of sexual selection. Inspired by the literary criticism of Jan Prokop and Przemyslaw Czaplinski and their observations, as well as the philosophical theses of Nietzsche and Deleuze, I aim to determine the role played in the literary creation by selection mechanisms of various kinds of readers. I distinguish between three main types of such mechanisms: (i) spontaneous selection of the publications by the reader market, (ii) arbitrary building the literature according to a conscious scheme (by a critic or a publisher with an authority sufficient to impose his or her taste), and (iii) mutual selection, joining writers and institutions of literary life into one system, in which each party influences the authority of the other. The first model structurally corresponds with the natural selection, the second – with artificial selection, and the third – sexual selection. Amongst them the third one is, in my opinion, most distinctive and important for the contemporary literature.

2

Only Cheap Talk after All? New Experimental Psychological Findings on the Role of Verbal Proficiency in Mate Choice

70%

Lange B. P., Hennighausen C., Brill M., Schwab F.

Psychology of Language and Communication

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2016

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vol. 20

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issue 1

1-22

EN

Recent evolutionary experimental psychological research found that high verbal proficiency (VP) increased the perceived attractiveness of individuals (more so for males than females), especially in the context of a long-term relationship. Our study had the objective of replicating and extending this research. Similar to previous studies, audio files in which speakers performed scripted self-presentations that had equal content but varied on VP were used as stimuli for opposite-sex participants. VP was found to increase attractiveness ratings. The effects were mostly small for numerous variables relating to short-term mating, whereas they were moderate to large for long-term mating. Our participants attributed more future income, but not more total number of mates to speakers with higher VP. Female menstrual cycle effects on attractiveness ratings were not found. Contrary to former research, being more verbally proficient was not found to be more beneficial for one sex over the other.

3

The private life of shrikes

61%

Tryjanowski P., Antczak M.

Nauka

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2007

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issue 3

EN

In shrikes (Laniidae) social monogamy is commonly occurs reproductive system. However, many kinds of behaviour look like an adaptation to extra-pair copulations were also described. The paper presents a popular synthesis of studies done on behavioural ecology of shrikes in Poland. Major part of study was possible because in Polish farmland still living quite dense and stable population of two shrike species: great-grey shrike Lanius excubitor and red-backed shrike L. collurio. We believe that some obtained findings may help to understand animals behaviour generally, and birds particularly. Especially fact than great grey shrike males offer quality of food to female before copulation, according to mate status: worst to an official social partner, and better to extra-pair female. Moreover, extra-pair copulations were realised in open places, but extra-pair in hidden sites. More details, including information on study area, used methods and statistical analysis, can be find in published scientific papers listed below.

4

Of Darwin and Other Demons: the Evolutionary Turn in Aesthetics

61%

Seghers E.

Kultura-Społeczeństwo-Edukacja

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2015

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vol. 8

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issue 2

73-90

EN

Evolutionary aesthetics attempts to explain the human ability to perceive objects, conspecif ics and the surrounding environment in an a es thetic manner - i.e. in an emotional and evaluative way resulting in a positive or negative appraisal - by referring to the evolutionary history of our functional, cognitive make-up. Research has mostly focussed on aesthetic considerat ions made during landscape assessment and on the role of aesthetic elements during mate choice. Criticism has been expressed repeatedly as to the naturalistic, presumed to be reductionist methods and outlook of an evolutionary approach to aesthetics. This paper briefly reviews the outline of evolutionary aesthetics research and discusses three such critiques - functionality in beauty judgement, reductionism, and the recognition of cultural and interindividual differences. It argues that philosophical aesthetics is not in danger of being unjustly reduced to a neurobiological explanation of aesthetic judgement and experience, and that evolutionary and traditional humanities approaches can be complementary in understanding our sense of beauty.

5

Estetyzacja ciała – wzorce piękna i urody w perspektywie ewolucyjnej

61%

Rak-Suska M.

Prosopon. Europejskie Studia Społeczno-Humanistyczne

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2018

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issue 4(25)

291-299

EN

Consumer society has undergone various transformations in terms of group and social behaviors. Body estheticization is undoubtedly one of the essential phenomena involved. It depends on the improvement of the bodilyfeatures in order to increase its esthetic values, i.e. transformation of the body into a work of art. Body estheticization is characterized by complex factors such as: reliance on the established patterns of beauty promoted by media. The article assumes that beauty may be perceived not only from the socio-cultural perspective but also as an evolutionary phenomenon. In the light of the course of evolution, people has developed a mechanism of sexual selection which facilitatedthe choice of the right candidate on the basis of the essential parameters including:existence, survival and reproductive success. Among other mechanisms, the external appearance, beauty, body and its predispositions have become symbols of beneficial genes, used alsoas a particular kind of information for representatives of the opposite sex. The article discusses the evolutionary foundation of beauty and beauty standards, in particular: the cult of youth, beautiful body and its predispositions, which constitute a connection between evolutionary psychology, socio-biology and body estheticization.

6

Słowo w ewolucji. Kłamstwa, seks, plotki i… znajomi na Facebooku

53%

Wężowicz-Ziółkowska D.

Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne

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2013

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issue 4

EN

The essay shows the main conceptions upon a biological power of a word: the macchiavellian theory/ theory of a lie, the mating mind theory, that means a theory of handicaps, and the social selection theory of S. Dunbar. The author proposes a thesis that a speech takes its power from the biological determinants of the origin of a language, and proves it by fusing various contemporary biological concepts. It is a biological evolution that founds the power of words, and also explains the magic of words in the various types of relations – among society, but also between sexes, generations and finally, among individuals considered in a biological sense.

7

On the human ethology of food sharing

41%

Schiefenhövel W.

Anthropological Review

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2014

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vol. 77

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issue 3

355-370

EN

This paper compares various explanatory concepts of food sharing in humans. In many animal species, parents share food with their offspring, thus investing into the 50% of their own genes present in each child. Even in modern families of industrialised societies, there is a very significant flow of material goods from the parent to the offspring generation. Sharing food between reproductive partners is also easily explainable in evolutionary terms: „food for sex“ as male strategy is observed in some primate species. Sharing within one’s group in small-scale societies can be explained also as consequence of its members being actually rather closely related to each other; this, among others, gives credit to the concept of group selection which gains attention again after having been discarded by classic sociobiology. The ethos of individual and group sharing can quite readily be transferred to larger groups, i.e. a whole nation or, especially in the case of unusually devastating natural disasters, to members of other societies. Food sharing beyond genetic relationship or reproductive interest has been explained as „tit for tat“ and „reciprocal altruism“. Events of give and take, however, are, how the last example demonstrates, quite often non-symmetrical, i.e. one partner shares much more than the other. „Tolerated theft“, a behavioural trait in non-human primate species thought to be a stepping stone for the typical preparedness of humans to share, does not play a big role in traditional societies, which provide an important base to discuss the topic. The Trobriand Islanders, e.g., have a very complex system of sharing. In the years of competitive harvest, their yield of yam is distributed to close relatives, especially to fathers and elder brothers. The donors keep almost nothing for themselves, are however given as well, so that everybody has enough to live. High rank men receive a partly enormous surplus, by which their status is increased. Western farmers would find this generosity quite strange. It is one outcome of the human tendency to create bonds through food gifts. It is interesting, that Marcel Mauss has well described the power of the gift which generates a counter gift, but did not inquire evolutionary nor ontogenetic building blocks of the often very complex acts and rituals of giving and receiving one finds in all cultures. It seems reasonable to take an evolutionary position and argue that those of our ancestors who were generous and socially competent with a well-developed emphronesis (Theory of Mind) were preferred interaction and marriage partners and that this sexual selection was the ultimate mechanism spreading the motivations and behaviours involved in sharing. To counteract cheaters humans have a rather sharp perception to detect those who don’t play by the rules and a very strong motivation to punish them, even accepting, in doing so, high costs for themselves. This strongly disproves the idea that humans mainly act on rationale choice. Rather, we are endowed, one must conclude, with a very powerful, archaic sense of balanced social interaction, of fairness and justice. This raises the interesting question whether the laws governing social conduct, made by all cultures of the world, are contra or secundum naturam. For quite some time, in the wave of sociobiological thinking, the common stand was that humans are dangerously egoistic beings and that their antisocial instincts must be kept in check by powerful laws. As Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, the founder of human ethology as a discipline, has stated and as recent primatological and anthropological research has corroborated, humans are much more social than postulated by some authors. The Ten Commandments are built on not against basic human tendencies. Konrad Lorenz spoke of animals having “morally analogous” behaviours and was criticised for this. Modern research is rehabilitating him. The joy of sharing, a proximate behavioural set of motivation, is typical for our species. Notwithstanding expectations of economic and status gain this biopsychologically rooted tendency most likely is the engine driving the systems of do ut des, so marvellously developed in our species.

8

Jak możliwa jest adaptacyjna analiza sztuki? Niektóre problemy metodologiczne estetyki ewolucyjnej

41%

Luty J.

Studia Philosophiae Christianae

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2020

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vol. 56

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issue 1

55-78

EN

Evolutionary aesthetics is a young and promising discipline that still lacks a fully developed methodology, such as neuroaesthetics. The disputes over situations in which a given artistic behaviour could be considered an adaptation (or perhaps a by-product of adaptation or a purely cultural product), do not lead to clear conclusions, as shown by the fact that the test results obtained can often be assigned to many hypothetical functions. For example, even if the hypothesis that a given behaviour is shared by all humans is confirmed empirically, this does not necessarily mean that the behaviour is an adaptation. For an explanation of the evolutionary origin of a behaviour to be reliable, it should pass the Tinbergen (1951) test, and thus get confirmation in each of the following four aspects: (1) it should appear spontaneously at an early stage of individual development, (2) it should have an identified function, (3) it should have its own evolutionary history, and (4) it should comprise an emotional mechanism that causes pleasure or disgust, operating under specific circumstances. If each of these conditions is met, it can be stated with a high degree of certainty that the behaviour in question is an adaptation in the strict sense of the word. But: is accuracy the domain of art?This article shows that the unique idea of the consilience of the humanities and natural sciences, despite numerous methodological puzzles, offers an attractive interpretation ofevolutionary aesthetics from the point of view of contemporary universalist challenges. It also allows us to understand the uniqueness of humans - the only species that artifies, attaches importance to performance, creates art and adores it. ------------- Received: 21/11/2019. Reviewed: 20/12/2019. Accepted: 09/01/2020

PL

Estetyka ewolucyjna jako młoda i obiecująca dyscyplina nadal w zasadzie nie posiada wypracowanej metodologii, choćby takiej jak neuroestetyka. Na przykład spory wokół tego, kiedy dane zachowanie artystyczne można uznać za adaptację (a może produkt uboczny adaptacji lub twór wyłącznie kulturowy), nie prowadzą do jasnych konkluzji, co wynika z faktu, że otrzymywane wyniki badań można często przypisać do wielu hipotetycznych funkcji. Z kolei, jeśli hipoteza o tym, że dane zachowanie jednoczy ludzi, zostanie potwierdzona empirycznie, to i tak nie musi to oznaczać, że zachowanie to jest adaptacją. Aby wyjaśnienie ewolucyjnego pochodzenia zachowania było wiarygodne, powinno ono przejść test Tinbergena (1951), a więc uzyskać potwierdzenie w każdym z czterech aspektów: (1) powinno ujawniać się spontanicznie na wczesnym etapie rozwoju osobniczego, (2) posiadać zidentyfikowaną funkcję oraz (3) historię ewolucyjną, a także (4) mechanizm emocjonalny wywołujący przyjemność lub odrazę, który uruchamia się w określonych okolicznościach. Jeśli każdy z tych warunków zostanie spełniony, z dużą dozą pewności można stwierdzić, że badane zachowanie jest adaptacją w sensie ścisłym. Czy jednak ścisłość jest domeną sztuki? W artykule starano się dowieść, że wyjątkowa idea konsiliencji nauk humanistycznych i przyrodniczych, pomimo licznych wątpliwości metodologicznych, w badaniach estetyków ewolucyjnych znajduje atrakcyjną z punktu widzenia współczesnych, uniwersalistycznych wyzwań, wykładnię. Pozwala też zbliżyć nas do zrozumienia wyjątkowości człowieka – jedynego gatunku, który powszechnie tworzy i konsumuje sztukę, będąc w niej bezgranicznie rozmiłowany. ------------- Zgłoszono: 21/11/2019. Zrecenzowano: 20/12/2019. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 09/01/2020

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