Abstract
The collaborative ‹Big Science’ approach prevalent in physics during the mid- and late-20th century is becoming more common in the life sciences. Often computationally mediated, these collaborations challenge researchers’ trust practices. Focusing on the visualisations that are often at the heart of this form of scientific practice, the paper proposes that the aesthetic aspects of these visualisations are themselves a way of securing trust. Kant’s account of aesthetic judgements in the Third Critique is drawn upon in order to show that the image-building capability of imagination, and the sensus communis, both of which are integral parts of aesthetic experience, play an important role in building and sustaining community in these forms of science. Kant’s theory shows that the aesthetic appeal of scientific visualisations is not isolated from two other dimensions of the visualisations: the cognitive-epistemic, aesthetic-stylistic and interpersonal dimensions, and that in virtue of these inter-relationships, visualisations contribute to building up the intersubjectively shared framework of agreement which is basic for trust.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Araya A. The Hidden Side of Visualization. Techné, 7(2): 27–93, 2003
H. Arendt. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. R. Beiner, editor. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992
Baier A. Trust and Anti-Trust. Ethics, 96: 231–260, 1986
Coady C.A.J. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992
Fricker E. Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony. Mind, 104: 393–411, 1995
E. Fricker. Trusting Others in the Sciences. A Priori or Empirical Warrant? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33:373–383, 2002
Goodwin C. Professional Vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3): 606–633, 1994
Hume D. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In L.A. Selby-Bigge, editor, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals. David Hume, p. 1777. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1902
Ihde D. Bodies in Technology. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis & London, 2002
Kant I. Critique of Judgement. Trans. J.C. Meredith, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1952
Keller E.F. Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors and Machines. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass, 2002
Kemp M. Visualizations: The ‹Nature’ Book of Art and Science. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000
Kessler E.A. Resolving the Nebulae: The Science and Art of Representing M51. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 38: 477–491, 2007
Kusch M., Lipton P. Testimony: A primer. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33: 209–217, 2002
Latour B. Visualisation and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present. 6: 1–40, 1986
Lefèvre W. Galileo Engineer: Art and Modern Science. Science in Context, 14: 11–27, 2001
Lynch M., Edgerton S.Y. Jr. Aesthetics and digital image processing: Representational Craft in Contemporary Astronomy. In G. Fyfe and J. Law, editor, Picturing Power: Visual Depiction and Social Relations. pp. 184–220. Routledge, London, 1988
McAllister J. Beauty and Revolution in Science. Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 1996
Origgi G. Is Trust and Epistemological Notion? Episteme, 1: 1–12, 2004
Reid T. An Inquiry into the Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. In W.H. Bart, editor, The Works of Thomas Reid. Maclachlan & Stewart, Edinburgh, 1764
Root-Bernstein R.S. Aesthetic Cognition. International Studies in Philosophy of Science, 16(1): 61–77, 2002
Schaeffer J. Sensus Communis in Vico and Gadamer. New Vico Studies, 5: 117–130, 1987
Shapin S. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in 17th Century England. University of Chicago Press, Chicago London, 1994
Tauber A.I. editor. The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1996
E. Welsh, M. Jirotka, and D. Gavaghan. Post-Genomic Science: Cross-disciplinary and Large-Scale Collaborative Research and its Organisational and Technological Challenges for the Scientific Research Process. Philosophical Transactions, Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, 364(1843): 1533–1549, 2006.
E. Winsberg. Models of Success vs. the Success of the Models: Reliability Without Truth. Synthese, 152: 1–19, 2006.
Acknowledgement
Research for the `Visualisations' section of this article was supported by ESRC grant no RES 149-25-1022. I would like to thank two anonymous referees for commentary.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Carusi, A. Scientific visualisations and aesthetic grounds for trust. Ethics Inf Technol 10, 243–254 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-008-9159-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-008-9159-5