Soutenance de thèse - Claudia Cano, "Capturing Interest : A Naturalized Account of Aesthetic (Dis)Interest as Epistemic Interest"

Date : Lundi 13 avril, 2026 de 14h30 à 18h00

Lieu : Salle Marbo | bâtiment Jaurès, 2ème étage | École normale supérieure | 29, rue d’Ulm 75005 Paris

Titre : "Capturing Interest : A Naturalized Account of Aesthetic (Dis)Interest as Epistemic Interest"

Résumé :
Interest, understood as an occurrent mental state, plays a role in both epistemic inquiry and aesthetic experience. This dissertation examines the relationship between epistemic interest and aesthetic interest and asks whether these constitute two genuinely distinct types of mental states or should instead be understood as manifestations of a single underlying phenomenon. Against a pluralist view according to which aesthetic interest is distinct from epistemic interest—typically grounded in the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness—I defend a unitary view. The central thesis of this work is that aesthetic interest is best understood as epistemic interest. More precisely, I argue that interest is, by nature, an epistemic emotion : an occurrent affective state that evaluates its object as offering opportunity for understanding that motivates exploratory engagement with that object for its own sake. Once interest is carefully distinguished from related phenomena, especially curiosity, and once strong conceptions of aesthetic disinterestedness are subjected to critical re-examination, there is no need to posit a sui generis aesthetic interest, distinct from epistemic interest. On the contrary, I argue that any presence of interest within aesthetic experience is epistemic interest itself. This naturalized model of aesthetic interest is not reductionist with respect to aesthetic experience, as aesthetic experience is not reducible to such epistemic interest. Rather, the aesthetic character of the experience derives from additional features distinct from the interest present in the experience, an interest that is none other than epistemic interest itself. I further show that a minimal and defensible conception of disinterestedness is already satisfied by the very structure of interest, without any need to deny its epistemic character. I finally turn to the correlates of interest, namely, interesting objects. While we sometimes encounter them by chance, some settings, such as information-based exhibitions, intentionally elicit our interest in a particular object by crafting specific artifacts that generate this kind of experience. I propose an analysis of these interest-eliciting artifacts by examining their presence in the domain of knowledge design. By integrating resources from aesthetics, epistemology, and the empirically informed literature on affect and motivation, this dissertation aims to shed light on interest, whose stakes lie at both the theoretical level and the level of contemporary practices of knowledge transmission.

Jury :
• Laurent Jaffro, reviewer
• Sandra Shapshay, reviewer
• Valeria Giardino, examiner
• Elisabeth Schellekens, examiner
• Enrico Terrone, examiner
• Jérôme Dokic, thesis supervisor