Truth and beauty in scientific reason

Abstract

A rationalist and realist model of scientific revolutions will be constructed by reference to two categories of criteria of theory-evaluation, denominated indicators of truth and of beauty. Whereas indicators of truth are formulated a priori and thus unite science in the pursuit of verisimilitude, aesthetic criteria are inductive constructs which lag behind the progression of theories in truthlikeness. Revolutions occur when the evaluative divergence between the two categories of criteria proves too wide to be recomposed or overlooked. This model of revolutions depends upon a substantial new treatment of aesthetic criteria in science with which much of the paper will therefore be occupied. © 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers.