Abstract
This article starts an engagement on the aesthetics of experiments and offers an account for analysing how aesthetics features in the design, evaluation and reception of experiments. I identify two dimensions of aesthetic evaluation of experiments: design and significance. When it comes to design, a number of qualities, such as simplicity, economy and aptness, are analysed and illustrated with the famous Meselson-Stahl experiment. Beautiful experiments are also regarded to make significant discoveries, but I argue against a narrow construal of experimental aims. By drawing on the plurality of goals experimenters have and diversity of aesthetic responses, I argue that experiments are aesthetically appreciated both when they discover and when they produce disruptive results.
Highlights
Much philosophical attention has recently been given to the relationship between aesthetics and science
The scientific community has praised this experiment for its beauty, but what is it about it that is beautiful? If we look in the scientific community for answers, we find a range of responses when it comes to the aesthetic evaluation and reception of this experiment, which I classify into two categories: (1) the design of the experiment: elegant, simple, apt and original; and (2) simple, clear, conclusive, important results
This article explored a rather neglected question in current philosophy of science: what constitutes a beautiful experiment? I identified two ways in which we could make a judgement with regard to the aesthetic value of an experiment
Summary
Much philosophical attention has recently been given to the relationship between aesthetics and science. While the philosophical engagement on the relationship between science and aesthetics is blooming, there seems to be a significant gap in the current literature when it comes to another important aspect of scientific activity: the experiment Such an absence of philosophical attention to the aesthetic nature of experimentation seems hard to justify since, like theories, experiments are regarded as having aesthetic properties, as being beautiful, and to generate aesthetic responses. 2 with an overview of the current literature on the aesthetics of science, outlining a number of questions that have received systematic attention, such as whether we should take the aesthetic discourse that occurs in science seriously, what constitutes beauty in science, whether aesthetic values are stable or changing, and whether they can play any epistemic roles in science After drawing this literature map, in Sect. I conclude that both the design of an experiment and its results should be considered when analysing the aesthetic value of an experiment and that aesthetic appreciation plays an important cognitive role in science
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