Babies Rule! Niches, Scaffoldings, and the Development of an Aesthetic Capacity in Humans

Where does the human aesthetic come from? How does it develop? By introducing the notion of the ‘niche’ (‘aesthetic niche’) as a key term in an empirically and evolutionarily informed aesthetics, this paper aims to take a fresh look at these and similar questions. It also aims to shed new light on the development and functioning of the aesthetic capacity in humans and its trans-generational transmission. Drawing on recent research developments in evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, and cognitive sciences, I shall argue that the human aesthetic capacity—which I understand as the capacity, involving perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes, to enter into a pleasurable/non-pleasurable and expressive relation with objects, artworks, natural phenomena, or other people—relies on constructed environmental resources (that is, on a niche) for its emergence and its ontogenetic development.