A lot of criticism has been directed at Murray Smith’s project of building “the third culture”, a research paradigm that unites natural sciences and humanities.[1] Exemplified in his account of naturalized aesthetics, Smith applies the principles of the third culture to his analysis of film, looking to explain how “distinctive aesthetic and artistic phenomena emerge from the general features of evolved human behavior and cognition” (2017: 154). Philosophers in particular were of the opinion that Smith has not done enough to show the place of aesthetics within the third culture. Most of the criticism echoed David Davies’ views, according to which relying on insights from natural sciences is either irrelevant (in that it does not tell us anything new about art) or misdirected, as it does not address those questions that…
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