Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature

A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselves What is art? Why does it matter to us? What does it tell us about ourselves? Normally we look to works of art in order to answer these fundamental questions. But what if the objects themselves are not what matter? In Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva No argues that our obsession with works of art has gotten in the way of understanding how art works on us. For No art isnt a phenomenon in need of an explanation but a mode of research a method of investigating what makes us humana strange tool. Art isnt just something to look at or listen toit 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 No 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 you might think. Reframing the conversation around artists and their craft Strange Tools is a daring and stimulating intervention in contemporary thought.