Joyce C. Havstad writes…
Artfully prepared fossils can be absolutely stunning. Take a look at these beauties:
Dire wolf skulls (top left) at the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits; a crinoid (top middle), an ornithomimid (bottom left), and a nodosaur (bottom right) from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology; Cambrian explosion-era organisms (bottom middle) at the Field Museum of Natural History; and an Anchiornis fossil (top right) on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, while on loan from the Geological Museum of China. All pictures in this post by the author.
But what is significant about fossils being beautiful? Why am I posting these pics? Well, Derek Turner has written a new book about the aesthetic aspects of paleontological specimens, locales, and practice. I think Derek’s book is a lovely piece of new, creative work, which is brightening up our little corner of the philosophy-of-science world.
Derek frames his project as a challenge to the epistemological status quo in the philosophy of science in general, and paleontology in particular: the typical focus on questions about knowledge and knowing. He writes that his “goal is to push back against this bias towards the epistemic, and to do so by showing that paleontological research is a form of aesthetic engagement with fossils and with landscapes. If this is right, then much recent philosophical discussion of paleontology has been too narrow in focus” (Turner 2019, page 1).
Speaking of paleontological landscapes, here are some additional visuals, also breathtaking:
Top right, the view from the site of the Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park in British Columbia; top left, the badlands at Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta; and on the bottom, two shots from Capital Reef National Park in Utah.
These pictures aren’t simply beautiful, they’re also geologically rich: the stark, multi-colored strata and variation in mineralogical form speak of varied past processes which formed them. Derek argues that artistic engagement with fossils and landscapes is part of paleontological science. Perhaps this seems like a radical or surprising thesis. But I agree with Derek: there are delightfully artistic elements hidden in myriad corners of scientific practice, and paleontology is an especially apt place to find them. After all, just look at those paleontological fossils and landscapes! It is easy to imagine them as collectible objets d’art; the scenery as painted plein air. So, Derek choosing paleontology to make his argument is pretty savvy, I think.
I am excited to see the argument being made and I am, as ever, a big fan of Derek’s work. But because I want to do a little more than coo my way through this blog post, however, I am now going to try and mount a compelling challenge to one element of Derek’s framing of the book. Here is an initial articulation: after framing the book as a push back against epistemic bias in the philosophy of science, I was surprised to see Derek deploy an account of artistic engagement that was so oriented around knowledge and knowing. In other words, Derek argues that we need to appreciate not just the epistemic but also the artistic aspects of paleontological practice… but then he offers an account of artistic appreciation that is itself quite epistemic.
Derek defends what he calls historical cognitivism. As he puts it, “according to historical cognitivism, knowing the history of something—whether a fossil, or a landscape, or anything else—deepens and enhances one’s aesthetic engagement with that thing, and helps one to better appreciate its aesthetic qualities” (Turner 2019, page 10). Derek’s cognitivism matters for his challenge to typical philosophy of science: “once you see how historical scientific knowledge can enhance aesthetic appreciation, that has profound implications for how we understand the practice of science” (Turner 2019, page 29). Derek characterizes the traditional way of viewing artistic values—that of potentially playing a role in theory choice—as one that “effectively subordinates aesthetic values to epistemological concerns” (ibid). In contrast, his approach—that of paleoaesthetics—is supposed to overturn all this; now, with historical cognitivism in play, we can see how epistemic investment produces aesthetic goods.
However, I do not equate aesthetic values playing a role in theory choice with “subordinating” the aesthetic to the epistemic. In contrast, I view those moments of influence as a really interesting way of putting aesthetic values in the driver’s seat—giving the aesthetic a surprising amount of control, in a domain traditionally ruled by the epistemic. This difference might explain why I am so surprised to see Derek use such a cognitivist account of artistic appreciation in his quest to subvert the traditional epistemic bias. To me, adopting a predominantly cognitivist approach to artistic appreciation puts epistemic values right back in the driver’s seat—taking control away from the aesthetic, in what is typically their domain. That is, for me, I saw the role of the aesthetic in theory choice (picking the most elegant hypothesis, for instance) as an instance of aesthetic values coming into their own; but on Derek’s view, the connection between aesthetics and epistemology is built by beliefs (about the history of an object, for instance). In sum, I thought this choice was ironic: to use a predominately epistemic account of aesthetic engagement in order to end subordination of the aesthetic to the epistemic.
Perhaps, though, it makes perfect sense. Maybe incorporating an epistemic account of the aesthetic into the practice of science is as radical of a suggestion as we can currently get away with. Given the powerful focus on the epistemic within the received view, perhaps precisely the best way to introduce the aesthetic into the epistemic practice of science is via small steps: with an epistemic view of the aesthetic. That might be, practically speaking, the most effective argument we are currently positioned to make.
Still, I want to suggest a potential limitation of excessively cognitivist approaches to artistic engagement and appreciation in science. There are moments in the book when Derek says things like “those with knowledge are better positioned to appreciate landscapes, fossils, and other things in nature… their engagement with nature is richer” (Turner 2019, page 23). I am not sure about this. Stances like this one might, I think, fail to appreciate non-cognitivist ways of artistically engaging and appreciating nature.
It is absolutely true that, sometimes, knowledge of a work of art deepens my engagement with and appreciation of it. Knowledge can make my experience of art a richer one. But if I am being honest with myself, sometimes I use that knowledge to re-establish some distance between myself and a work of art that has moved me. In other words, knowledge of art can help me regain control over myself and my emotions when a great work of art has wrested control from me. The abstract, analytic nature of my knowledge serves as a barrier to my immediate non-cognitive engagement. So, I am not sure that knowledge necessarily puts me in a better position to appreciate art; or, that it necessarily makes my experience of art richer. I wonder whether Derek thinks there are limits to the enrichening which knowledge can bestow on artistic experience. I suspect there are, and that attending to those limits might elicit further appreciation for and engagement with the less cognitivist elements of artistic experience.
Perhaps it is rather old-fashioned, but I still find the notion of the sublime quite compelling, at least when it comes to characterizing one possible non-cognitivist component of our artistic experience. In 1757, Edmund Burke wrote in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful that “whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible objects or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime.” Dinosaurs can be terrifying! Especially the really big or fierce ones. The word ‘dinosaur’ literally means “terrible lizard.” And strata can be scary, too. Looking at a landscape displaying millions of years of rock crushed into thin bands stacked one atop another by the literal weight to time can be just as overwhelming as gazing out at the open ocean or peering over a dizzying cliff. These comparative experiences unsettle us. They force us to confront our vulnerability, our insignificance: our genuine place in things.
Pictures probably can’t do it justice, but I have felt the presence of the paleontological sublime before—especially, when out in the field:
One of these shots (top middle) is of a trilobite in situ at the Burgess Shale; the rest are from Dinosaur Provincial Park.
It is hard to describe the sensation of stumbling upon a bone bigger than any of your own, and many of millions of years older, lying there eroding out of the dirt. Holding a piece of mineralized hadrosaur skin or a just-discovered tyrannosaurid tooth is surreal. Seeing a trilobite in situ; looking at a bit of ceratopsid horn wedged jauntily in a bluff—I am not a good enough writer to share with you the feelings I had during these experiences. But they were sublime! And I think there have been times when I have turned to learning about the history of these objects and landscapes as a way of mastering them, of re-asserting my sense of control and re-establishing a comfortable illusion regarding my own position. A position which is that of being, at best, a tiny spec in a vast and uncaring historical array. In short: I think it is possible to use knowledge as a way of diminishing, rather than enhancing, artistic appreciation of sublime paleontological moments. Because, undiminished, their effects can be so unsettling.
That’s it—this appeal to sublime paleontological experience is, in effect, my proposed argument for thinking that it might not be the case that historical knowledge necessarily makes for richer artistic appreciation and engagement. I am proposing that, sometimes, less attention to knowing and knowledge can make for a more authentic artistic experience. Thanks for indulging me in a somewhat fanciful and certainly more speculative post than usual. Special thanks to Derek for writing such a provocative and welcome book, and to Adrian for providing such helpful feedback during the drafting of this post.
References
Burke, E. 1757. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. Public domain.
Turner, D. 2019. Paleoaesthetics and the Practice of Paleontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).