6. ‘Aesthetics has no real value to societies’ Examine, with reference to the Aesthetics, how the concept of value applies to knowledge


The first thing aesthetics brings to mind is that it is nothing more than just an opinion. Though it is thought that mere opinions cannot contribute to obtaining knowledge, it is useful in filtering for the scientists and mathematicians to filter off “ugly” knowledge and to beautify what they have found. But how does the concept of value apply to knowledge?

Things can be valued with different criterions. An aesthetically valuable thing is something that is simple, ideal or pragmatic, depending on the scientist, mathematician and the observer. But let us consider only simplicity and ideals for this essay.

Firstly, take mathematics as an example. To a mathematician, a beautiful mathematical proof is one that uses a minimum of additional assumptions or previous results, unusually short, easy to generalize to solve a family of problems. Without aesthetics, no doubt that the mathematician can produce the same results with a lengthier proof, and justify many other mathematical beliefs, but this will involve too many calculations. It is due to aesthetics, the opinion, that mathematicians reduce their methods into short, simple ones. And in this case, it has refined the knowledge from “ugly”, over-elaborated ones to “beautiful”, simple ones.

As such, William Ockham and his “Occam’s razor” come to mind. Occam’s razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible and eliminating those assumptions that does not make a difference to the prediction. This suggests that the simplest explanations are usually the best. As quoted by Albert Einstein, “Things should be as simple as possible, but not any simpler.” This quote suggested that Einstein, the founder of Einstein Field Equations which is used in general relativity, used Occam’s razor to some extent.

In both cases, aesthetics has given support to the societies of the modern world. Even though it is just opinion, these aesthetically beautiful equations, explanations and etceteras have benefited the society. With the aid of these equations and explanations, we have been able to calculate when the next eclipse is, where a planet will be after a period of time and what aliment a patient is suffering from and such. It is unfair to say that aesthetics has no real value to societies.

Idealism, founded by Plato, suggested perfect forms. Perfect suggests a state of flawlessness and completeness. For example, a flawless precious gem is of a higher value than one that is flawed. Idealism can be used to evaluate objects or observations in the sense that when these things are compared to what is deemed as perfect, how close to the perfect form is it. Idealism is a valuable tool of epistemology. Considering if aesthetics have no real value to the societies, would this render idealism invalid too?

In the school of thought where ideals are considered first and simpler explanation and methods are preferred over others, aesthetics plays a major part in the construction of knowledge, either as a filter or an incentives to scientists and mathematicians that derive aesthetic pleasure from their work.

“Aesthetics has no real value to societies.” This is probably the motto of an opposing school of thought.

In terms of simplicity, a few people considered Occam’s razor too extreme or rash. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also devised his own anti-razor that used the Principle of Plentitudes.

This principle asserts that anything that can happen will happen. Leibniz anti-razor gives rise to “infinite monkey theorem” that states that a monkey hitting keys on a typewriter at random for an infinite amount of time will almost surely create a particular text. But the chance of it happening is very low. Consider the word monkey. There is fifty keys on a typewriter, therefore the chances of hitting the letter “M” is one out of fifty. The chance of hitting the letter “O” is also one out of fifty. Since the event is independent, the chance of hitting an “O” after an “M” is one out of two hundred and fifty. Therefore to type out the word “banana”, it is a one out of fifty to the power of six chances.

Skeptics will ask, “Without aesthetics the societies will improve at similar rate?”, “How can simplified things be valued above the rest?”, “Could the simplification of mathematical equations reduce the amount of time calculating so significantly that the world can advance so quickly?”

In my opinion, the world is a better place due to the simplicity of knowledge. No doubt the world can reach the same stage of development without simplification and ideals but it will only reach the stage at a slower rate.

In conclusion, the aesthetically beautiful explanations and equations and the aesthetic concept of value, when applied to knowledge has aided the world in its advancement and that it has a value to the societies.