Scientists’ use of visual representations in research and teaching has attracted increasing philosophical interest over the last two decades. These studies generally aim to explain the contributions images make to the production of scientific knowledge. Philosophers have not investigated these images as objects of aesthetic attention, nor have they made significant use of the aesthetics literature, beyond the debate over the nature of depiction. On the other hand, historians and others in the science studies community who have analyzed scientific images in terms of style have also argued that the images are made to support rhetorical functions, such as the “rhetoric of reality.”
In this talk I will draw on some work in contemporary aesthetics to clarify some distinctively aesthetic aspects of engaging with scientific visual representations, and show how these resources can be used to illuminate epistemic issues concerning reasoning with images as well as their rhetorical aspects.
Moderation: Privatdozent Dr. Dr. Martin Langanke