On Aesthetics in Science

ISBN-13: 9780817633790 / Angielski / Twarda / 1988 / 180 str.

Wechsler; Judith Wechsler

Opis

Are aesthetic considerations part of the process by which scientific hypotheses are selected or rejected? And if so, is aesthetics incompatible with necessary scientific objectivity, or does it increase the validity of the cognitive aspects of science? These issues are examined in this unusual collection of essays by six prominent scholars (Cyril Stanley Smith, Philip Morrison, Arthur I. Miller, Seymour A. Papert, Howard E. Gruber, and Geoffrey Vickers) who all agree that aesthetic judgments are crucial to science. Their essays are not so much concerned with the products and artifacts of science as with the concepts, models, and theories that make them possible. This text evolved from a course given by the editor, Judith Wechsler, at MIT. It is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand and appreciate the role of aesthetics in science and technology.