“The Line of Beauty”: on Natural Forms and Abduction (original) (raw)

Abstract

On Beauty There seems to be a relation or some sort of 'unity' between man's works and the spontaneously occurring works produced by nature such as shells, nests, horns and so on. To use Bertalanffy's term for describing common properties of objects or systems (1973), nature's forms and human forms are isomorphic. For example, efficient structures typical of shells or plants such as spirals and radii, are very common archetypes that recur throughout the whole body of humans' architecture. A spiral form can be easily found in the design of the pavement of a square, the staircase of a building or the cupola of a church, while plant's radiated structures have been beautifully utilised in Gothic architecture in the form of fan vaults. Therefore a certain relation between natural and human models appears evident. But one may easily argue on the legitimacy of hypothesising this very relation. How does such visible evidence entails 'truth' or, generally, a true causal relation? This question immediately raises another one: until what extent should we trust our senses – in this specific case, sight- and, more in general, what type of knowledge do perceptions provide? In the aesthetic framework provided by the discussion on the relation between human and natural forms, this paper proposes a synthetic treatment of inferential methods, with emphasis on abduction. Being the only method of scientific enquiry that takes in serious consideration the fallible-but-creative knowledge-generation potential of perceptions, abduction allows to argue not only that there is a necessary link between human and natural forms, but that this link is indeed is causal. In other words, human aesthetics is profoundly and primarily shaped by natural evolution.

Key takeaways

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  1. Abduction proposes a causal link between natural and human forms in aesthetics.
  2. The text highlights the creative potential of abduction in scientific inquiry and knowledge generation.
  3. Abduction allows for the coexistence of both true and false values in its conclusions.
  4. The argument infers human architecture's evolution from natural forms, applying Modelling Systems Theory.
  5. Peirce's abduction challenges rigid logic, promoting flexibility and innovation in reasoning.

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References (15)

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