The Creative Moment of Scientific Apprehension

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 5 (1) (2013)
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Abstract

Scientific explanation is both instrumental and consummatory. When we experience scientific explanation in its consummation, we experience what I have deemed a creative moment of scientific apprehension, which is an important aspect of creativity that comes at the end of inquiry and contributes to the development of future inquiry. Because scientific explanation is commonly cleaved from aesthetic experience, this moment of creativity has been neglected in both analyses of scientific practice and analyses of aesthetic experience. By synthesizing John Dewey’s conceptions of scientific explanation and aesthetic experience with Charles S. Peirce’s categories, this moment of scientific inquiry is revealed and understood as a fundamental part of our creative reasoning process. In order to argue that scientific explanation is both instrumental and consummatory, Dewey’s instrumental conception of scientific explanation is provided, which includes why science is so often considered as separated from aesthetic experience. A general overview of Dewey’s conception of aesthetic experience and the common division conceived between scientific experience and that of aesthetics is also provided. Reasons are then supplied to reconsider scientific experience as having an aesthetic dimension, especially with regard to scientific explanations and the creative moment of scientific apprehension, which is followed by a brief discussion concerning how recognition of this moment reveals an important aspect of creative reasoning that is to be understood as a part of our experience through what Peirce referred to as firstness and secondness. Analyzing the aesthetic experience of scientific explanations against the backdrop of Dewey’s conceptions of aesthetics and science, combined with Peirce’s categories, accounts for that creative moment of scientific apprehension in which a scientific explanation takes on the quality of kalos, or sense of general harmony, that inspires reverie and future inquiry.

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Mark Tschaepe
Prairie View A&M University

Citations of this work

Cognition as a Transformative Process.Vera Saller & Donata Schoeller - 2018 - European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 10 (1).

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References found in this work

Dewey on naturalism, realism and science.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2002 - Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2002 (3):S25-S35.
John Dewey's metaphysics of experience.Richard J. Bernstein - 1961 - Journal of Philosophy 58 (1):5-14.
Dewey on Naturalism, Realism and Science.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2002 - Philosophy of Science 69 (S3):S25-S35.
The logical foundations of Peirce's aesthetics.Max Oliver Hocutt - 1962 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 21 (2):157-166.

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