On The Rise of the Aesthetic Mind: Archaeology and Philosophy

Moving from a critical assessment of some recent attempts to define the arts in terms of adaptations, spandrels, by-products and, moreover, calling into question the continued development of the concept of the "aesthetic" in the frame of contemporary interdisciplinary research projects, the main aim of this paper is to highlight some of the ways in which archaeological objects can, at least in some respects, testify to the manifestation of the modern aesthetic mind.