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  1. Fitting Feelings and Elegant Proofs: On the Psychology of Aesthetic Evaluation in Mathematics.Cain Todd - 2018 - Philosophia Mathematica 26 (2):211-233.
    This paper explores the role of aesthetic judgements in mathematics by focussing on the relationship between the epistemic and aesthetic criteria employed in such judgements, and on the nature of the psychological experiences underpinning them. I claim that aesthetic judgements in mathematics are plausibly understood as expressions of what I will call ‘aesthetic-epistemic feelings’ that serve a genuine cognitive and epistemic function. I will then propose a naturalistic account of these feelings in terms of sub-personal processes of representing and assessing (...)
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  • Fitting Feelings and Elegant Proofs: On the Psychology of Aesthetic Evaluation in Mathematics.Cain Todd - 2017 - Philosophia Mathematica:nkx007.
    ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of aesthetic judgements in mathematics by focussing on the relationship between the epistemic and aesthetic criteria employed in such judgements, and on the nature of the psychological experiences underpinning them. I claim that aesthetic judgements in mathematics are plausibly understood as expressions of what I will call ‘aesthetic-epistemic feelings’ that serve a genuine cognitive and epistemic function. I will then propose a naturalistic account of these feelings in terms of sub-personal processes of representing and (...)
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  • Unmasking the truth beneath the beauty: Why the supposed aesthetic judgements made in science may not be aesthetic at all.Cain S. Todd - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (1):61 – 79.
    In this article I examine the status of putative aesthetic judgements in science and mathematics. I argue that if the judgements at issue are taken to be genuinely aesthetic they can be divided into two types, positing either a disjunction or connection between aesthetic and epistemic criteria in theory/proof assessment. I show that both types of claim face serious difficulties in explaining the purported role of aesthetic judgements in these areas. I claim that the best current explanation of this role, (...)
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