Abstract
The sciences and arts were once, not so very long ago, considered to be very similar, certainly complementary, and sometimes even overlapping ways of understanding the world. No longer. Today we accept such generalizations as that the sciences are objective, analytical, and rational whereas the arts are subjective, emotional, and based on intuition. But I am a controversialist. The fact that arts and sciences are not widely perceived to be similar does not mean that they are not. Fashions often dictate perceptions of beauty and knowledge alike, and fashions are notoriously changeable. Thus, I am willing — indeed eager — to challenge the new fashion of separating sciences and arts into two, uncommunicating and even antagonistic camps. I believe that such a challenge is not only necessary if we are to develop a viable theory of thinking, but also healthy, for it should create controversy. Unlike some people, who believe that knowledge is best advanced by the slow accumulation of validated and undoubtable bits of information, I believe that we learn most by challenging conventional wisdom with the biggest and best arguments we can muster. This is my style. Sometimes it fails; sometimes it succeeds. But in either case, the process of trying to undermine dogma often reveals new aspects of knowledge, or forces it to be utilized in new and innovative ways that justify the rethinkings.
On the same terms, therefore, as art is attained to, is all knowl edge and science acquired; for as art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known: as that proceeds from the imitation of types or forms, so this proceeds from the knowledge of things. Each has its origin in sense and experience.... Sir William Harvey1
In the truths of the natural sciences there is, perhaps, a nearer analogy to the productions of the refined arts [than anything else]. The contemplation of the laws of the universe is con nected with an immediate tranquil exaltation of mind, and pure mental enjoyment. The perception of truth is almost as simple a feeling as the perception of beauty; and the genius of Newton, of Shakespeare, of Michael Angelo, and of Handel, are not very remote in character from one each other. Imagination, as well as reason, is necessary to perfection in the philosophical mind. A rapidity of combination, a power of perceiving analogies, and of comparing them by facts, is the creative source of discovery. Discrimination and delicacy of sensation, so important in physical research, are other words for taste; and the love of nature is the same passion as the love of the magnificent, the sublime, and the beautiful. Sir Humphrey Davy2
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Notes
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Root-Bernstein, R.S. (1996). The Sciences and Arts Share a Common Creative Aesthetic. In: Tauber, A.I. (eds) The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 182. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1786-6_3
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