The word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek word ‘philosophia’, literally ‘love of wisdom’. In preparation of the Science Poems exhibition and book, we felt the need for wisdom and a deep conversation about the role of aesthetics in science. What do art and design have to offer science? How and why should the disciplines be brought together? We sat down with Tomi Kokkonen, a philosopher at the University of Helsinki, to talk about aesthetics as a cognitive and critical tool for science – a tool for depicting subjective meanings and bringing science to life.
Science through Art I: Botany. The illustration is based on Juan van der Hamen y León's work Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, 1629.
The reason we wanted to meet you is that we’ve so far mainly discussed the topic of aesthetics in science with artists and designers. We think it’s important to involve someone who knows more about the meaning, objectives and processes of science in the discourse. What is it that first comes to your mind when looking at aesthetics in the scientific context?
In the everyday life of science, aesthetics is an important cognitive tool that is used to, for example, visualise complex information.
All the artworks in the Science Poems exhibition deal with natural sciences – for example, through pictorial essays about the functions of the brain, clothing for retreating from electromagnetic radiation or sounds deriving from protein chains. How would you compare these approaches to the usual ways of examining science from a philosophical point of view?
Philosophy of science is mainly interested in describing and systematising the logic of scientific theories and practices, and sometimes participating in scientific process on a theoretical level. Another philosophical aim is to explicate what the scientific findings mean in a broader context. This is where art can overlap philosophy. For example, science fiction often involves highly abstract theories and explores what these might mean in practice, materialised in new technology or yet unknown phenomena. Science fiction aims to make science more perceivable, closer to subjective experience, through a story. I think the exhibition pieces work in very similar ways. The difference, however, is, that all the exhibition works seem to somehow deal with ‘doing’ science – they are about the research subject or the process of doing research – in contrast to theoretical knowledge, which is the end-product of the scientific process. This, I think, is both new and very important. This kind of art makes the process of science experienced and better understood. Understanding scientific practices and the research process is a crucial part of understanding science, and I think this kind of art is a welcome supplement for popularising science.
What do you think is the meaning and value of exploring science outside the scientific context?
Scientific knowledge and results are often taken as brute facts or simple “truths” by the public. But it is important to understand where these truths come from, how the facts about the observable phenomena are transferred into interpretations about the reality. By tracing the scientific processes and taking different perspectives to the results, including an artist’s perspective, it is possible to make science more approachable – and perhaps more useful for the lay people.
“By applying different, or artistic, perspectives to scientific processes and results, it is possible to make science more approachable – and perhaps more useful for the lay people.”
We chose natural sciences as our topic for the Science Poems exhibition by intuition, but thinking about it now, the recent general interest around this branch of science by many artists and designers must have had an influence, too. What makes natural sciences special?
Natural sciences differ from human sciences in a sense that they explore the world independent from human beings: our actions don’t constitute this world the way they constitute society or culture – its regularities and phenomena are independent from us. Then again, the scientific theories reflecting this reality are man-made and therefore are not independent from human perspective. In human sciences, the research focuses on things that don’t exist without human perspective and action in the first place. This does not mean that we have direct knowledge about them – we still have to do scientific research – but the phenomena are still more directly within the reach of our subjective experience. Natural sciences often explore things and phenomena that are beyond our normal abilities to sense or even conceptualise. But it is worth realising that the research subjects are still physically present in our everyday lives.
Science through Art II: Geometry. The illustration is based on Piet Mondrian's work from 1936.
We suppose that these alternative perspectives could bring out elements of science that are normally hidden – like stories behind science-making. Art can also produce new interpretations of research questions as well as the results.
Yes, science aims at accuracy: clearly analysable arguments, numerical data and so on. In this process, certain kinds of subjective meanings are disregarded – meanings that, in my view, art deals with. I believe art can enrich the scientific sphere with subjective meanings and questions regarding its processes and outcomes.
“I believe art can enrich the scientific sphere with subjective meanings and questions regarding its processes and outcomes.”
We agree, science is an intriguing field also for people not working in the area. Could you think of examples of how bringing science within the reach of people might benefit them and the society in general?
I think that trying to demonstrate both scientific results and processes is useful because it helps people to really understand them. Climate change is a good example. When sceptics have brought up inadequacies in the theory and some of the data, many people have thought that climate change does not exist after all, because they don’t understand how the theory is constructed from the data and strongly justified background assumptions. They might also think that one cold winter is an anomaly for the theory – which it isn’t – without seeing the bigger picture. Stating the facts is not sufficient when trying to communicate what the data and results really mean.
Going back to the relationship between science and art – how do you see the general state of it at the moment?
The humanistic culture has somehow taken on an idea about separating natural sciences from art, literature and so on. Even in the academy, human scientists and natural scientists have formed their own ghettos with little understanding of what the others are doing in the first place. This unfortunate situation is known as the Two Cultures -problem, according to C.P. Snow, who himself was both a novelist and a physicist. I strongly feel that knowledge of natural sciences should be a part of the cultural common knowledge just in the same way as the social theories etc. I think it is alarming that at the same time as humanistic psychology (e.g. Freudian psychoanalysis) is considered to be a part of intellectual common knowledge, the staggering discoveries of natural science oriented psychology are virtually unheard of or rejected, and the cultural elite seems to be uninterested in them in the first place. This is obviously a problem for both scientists and humanists. However, there are signs of things getting better. A good example of scientists popularising scientific knowledge and taking a part of a traditional cultural intellectual is the Third Culture movement that deals with the work of scientists who are communicating their (sometimes provocative) ideas directly to the general public. As the name suggests, the Third Culture tries to overcome the gap between the Two Cultures.
[Editor's note! Third Culture, as defined by the founder of the movement, John Brockman, a cultural impresario and one of Andy Warhol's backers: "Traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time. Their culture, which dismisses science, is often non-empirical. By contrast, the Third Culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are."]
We are, in the end, humans but also physical and biological beings!
“We are, in the end, humans but also physical and biological beings!”
Somehow, it feels like an amateur can show interest in art without knowing too much about it but interest in, for example, chemistry might seem weird if one doesn’t have any skills for it or understanding about it. But perhaps science could also be experienced in different ways – not just through thorough understanding, but through other kinds of perceptions.
I agree. Science should be introduced to people in different ways – not just through scientific approaches. Many people might also be interested in natural sciences without acknowledging it. It just needs to be pointed out for them somehow, like for example in chemistry through cooking. Everything that happens in the kitchen is chemistry.
You mentioned that it would be good to shed more light on the processes of producing scientific knowledge, instead of merely focusing on the results. We read about Thomas Kuhn who was one of the most significant philosophers of science in the 20th century and who explored how science develops. Could you open up his ideas for us a bit?
I just gave a 1,5-hour lecture about him this morning, but I’ll try to make it short!
Kuhn argued against the idea that science develops only through random discoveries, accumulation of knowledge and gradual improvement of theories. This happens only within a temporary framework of theories and principles he calls “paradigms”. Instead, he thought that science undergoes periodic “paradigm shifts” in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed. In his opinion, our view on how the world functions is based on temporary theories entailing hypotheses about things that we can’t perceive. These theories are constantly tested against our perceptions and experimental data. If the two don’t match and the theories cannot be tinkered superficially to make a match, science strives to maintain its harmony by assigning them as deviations, anomalies. If they accumulate, the scientific discipline in question is in a state of crisis. Kuhn believes that it is these crises, typically caused by the inability to explain one’s observations according to the dominant theory, that lead to transformations of the fundamental theories and assumptions. His opinion is that, in fact, science and theories do not evolve towards the true picture of reality – the paradigms just change.
Science Through Art III: Meteorology. The illustration is based on Caspar David Friedrich's work Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818.
So the scientific “truth” is, in fact, quite fragile – and in the end, there are many ways of seeing.
Yes, there are many ways of seeing the same thing, and many of them can be correct at the same time. It depends on both the objective facts and the perspective you take. To use Kuhn’s terminology, a research subject might appear very different when looked at through two different paradigms. When we are looking at, for example, the Sun rise and set, we perceive the Sun moving, but we can alternatively think that the Sun stays still while the Earth moves about. However, the observation of the movement itself, be it the Sun or the Earth that is moving, is an objective empirical fact. It is real. One should not confuse perspectivism, the theory that knowledge is limited by the individual perspective from which it is viewed, with relativism – the idea that knowledge exists in relation to culture, society, or historical context. Furthermore, the choice of perspective is not arbitrary, it depends on the context. In the astronomical context, the Earth moves, and this is unambiguous. But from a subjective point of view, it is still perfectly correct to say that it’s the Sun that goes up and down. Science is only one way to look at reality. Science aims to tell about the world as accurately and objectively as possible. But then again, there are many ways to perceive the world to begin with! Even if a new phenomenon is discovered through science, the purely scientific perspective is not necessarily the best way to understand what this phenomenon is for us, from our living human perspective.
In other words, the truth could be seen, for example, from an accurate point of view of science or from the point of view of art which aims to stimulate experiences.
Exactly. In one sense, at least in some cases, art can speak to us more about reality than science, even if science contains more information about the subject at hand. Yet it would be wrong to speak about different “truths”, the “truth of science” and the “truth of art”, for example, since even if the perspective changes, it is the same old world out there that determines what is true in a given perspective. But it is possible to try and look at the world from different perspectives – from one that is based on knowledge or from others that are based on emotion, etc. Science tries to describe the world as accurately as possible and philosophy tries to see what all this information means. But art is the medium which is best suited to bring all that as part of the way we experience the reality. They are complementary.
“Science tries to describe the world accurately and philosophy to see what all this information means. But art is the medium best suited to bring that all together as part of the way we experience the reality.”
To go back to the core topic of science and aesthetics, let’s discuss visuality in science. Visual aids that are used to communicate results to the outside world are also utilised within the science world.
Yes, very much so. Science doesn’t take place just inside the scientist’s mind or in the calculations of a computer. Scientists ‘externalise’ part of their cognition with external aids, such as diagrams and visual models. Sometimes it is easier to think about things through visuality – although the research subject would not even deal with spatial dimensions, it might be easier to think about them as some kinds of layers or shapes. Scientists might use visual metaphors even in their private thinking. For example, some mathematicians visualise the problems in their minds while others process them mechanically or through intuition. But there are many drawings done by scientists in the world, used for thinking and communication – and, I’m sure, for aesthetic self-expression!
It’s also quite interesting that in science an ingenious scientific result is called ‘elegant’.
Yes, a scientific result or solution is considered elegant when it expresses only the essential, the core of the discovery, explaining as much as possible with as little as possible. In mathematics, this might mean the most simplified or symmetrical result or solution.
The simplicity also serves to achieve applicability and a simple explanation that can be applied to many problems is also more likely to be true. But aesthetic preferences are definitely related to this also – a simple, elegant research result can also be seen as simply beautiful.