Aesthetic Preferences in Mathematics: A Case Study†

Philosophia Mathematica 26 (2):161-183 (2018)
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Abstract

Although mathematicians often use it, mathematical beauty is a philosophically challenging concept. How can abstract objects be evaluated as beautiful? Is this related to their visualisations? Using an example from graph theory, this paper argues that, in making aesthetic judgements, mathematicians may be responding to a combination of perceptual properties of visual representations and mathematical properties of abstract structures; the latter seem to carry greater weight. Mathematical beauty thus primarily involves mathematicians’ sensitivity to aesthetics of the abstract.

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References found in this work

The Metaphysics of Beauty.Nick Zangwill - 2001 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Aesthetic value.Alan H. Goldman - 1995 - Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
The Metaphysics of Beauty.Nick Zangwill - 2002 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (4):358-360.
Beauty in Proofs: Kant on Aesthetics in Mathematics.Angela Breitenbach - 2013 - European Journal of Philosophy 23 (4):955-977.

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