Uloga estetskog doživljaja u koncipiranju prirodno-naučnih teorija

Abstract

U radovima domaćih i stranih autora može se pronaći hipoteza o homo aestheticusu, prema kojoj je čovek suštinski estetsko biće. Zaista, estetski doživljaj zastupljen je u gotovo svim sferama ljudske aktivnosti, pa i u oblasti prirodnih nauka. Poznato je da sistematična, racionalna istraživanja prirode započinju sa pitagorejskim otkrićima iz oblasti geometrije, muzike i akustike. Pitagorejci su među prvima utvrdili da se lepi, harmonični muzički intervali mogu predstaviti putem kvantitativnih relacija, što ih je podstaklo da na taj način objasne strukturu fizičkog sveta. Zahvaljujući Platonovoj recepciji pitagorejske filozofije prirode, estetski pojmovi simetrije, asimetrije, lepote i harmonije, postali su osnovna paradigma prirodno-naučnog istraživanja, dugo zadržavajući dominantnu ulogu. Prema Platonovom shvatanju, kosmos je delo „umetnika“ koji stvara ugledajući se na idealno lepe matematičke oblike. Iako je uticaj ove antičke, estetske kosmološke paradigme znatno oslabio u poslednjih nekoliko vekova, u nekim oblastima savremene fizike, pa i biologije, pojmovi simetrije i „spontanog narušavanja simetrije“ i dalje igraju izuzetno značajnu ulogu. Neki od velikih fizičara, kao na primer Vilček (Frank Wilczek) u svojoj knjizi A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design, potenciraju ulogu estetskog doživljaja u prirodno-naučnom saznanju.

In the works of domestic and foreign authors, one can find the hypothesis of homo aestheticus, according to which man is essentially an aesthetic being. Indeed, aesthetic experience is represented in almost all spheres of human activity, including the field of natural sciences. It is known that systematic, rational investigations of nature began with Pythagorean discoveries in the fields of geometry, music and acoustics. The Pythagoreans were among the first to establish that beautiful, harmonic musical intervals could be represented by quantitative relations, which encouraged them to explain the structure of the physical world in this way. Thanks to Plato’s reception of the Pythagorean philosophy of nature, the aesthetic concepts of symmetry, asymmetry, beauty and harmony became the basic paradigm of natural scientific research, retaining a dominant role for a long time. According to Plato, the cosmos is the work of an “artist” who creates by using ideally beautiful mathematical forms as archetypes. Although the influence of this ancient, aesthetic cosmological paradigm has significantly weakened in the last few centuries, the concepts of symmetry and “spontaneous symmetry breaking” still play an extremely important role in some areas of modern physics, as well as in biology. Some of the great physicists, such as Frank Wilczek in his book A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design, emphasize the role of aesthetic experience in acquisition of natural-scientific knowledge.