Aesthetic feelings in scientific reasoning

Journal article

Abstract:: Scientists regularly invoke broadly aesthetic properties like elegance and simplicity when evaluating theories, but why should we expect aesthetic pleasure to signal an epistemic good? I argue that aesthetic judgements in science are best understood as a special case of affective cognition, and that the feelings on which these judgements are based are the upshots of metacognitive monitoring of the quality of our engagement with theory and evidence. Finding a theory beautiful fallibly signals that it fits well with our background knowledge and that it’s neither artificially adjusted to accommodate otherwise disconfirming evidence nor fitted to noise in the data, which makes aesthetic pleasure a good heuristic for theory evaluation.

Files:: Miyata-Sturm_2024_Aesthetic_feelings_in.pdf

(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 207.7KB, Terms of use)

Publication website:: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=9403437

Language:: English
Keywords:: affective cognition

aesthetics in science

theory evaluation

heuristics

metacognition
Pubs id:: 1914187
Local pid:: pubs:1914187
Deposit date:: 2024-03-27
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_2ad2f12f63174a93a58609dde8fd9622

Notes:: This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available online from the Universidad de Oviedo at: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=9403437

Licence:: Terms and Conditions of Use for Oxford University Research Archive

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