Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The arts and sciences have exhibited fundamental similarities since their beginnings. Each has always been an inherently aesthetic activity. There has always been artistry in science (including the social sciences) as there is inevitably an empirical basis to good art. Other commonalities include the imaginative process that inhabits the work of both the artist and the scientist, the drive of each to illuminate and interpret facets of the physical and social worlds, and the personal nature of these inevitably human enterprises. Indeed, historians of western thought have noted that before the nineteenth century no substantial differences were recognized between the arts and sciences. Still, following the period of the Enlightenment, the arts and sciences were forced to occupy separate methodological chambers, as within western culture distinctive techniques and modes of representation of each were emphasized. This strict segregation within an art/science dichotomy was most famously described in C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures (1959). This dualism, reaching its crescendo during the reign of the logical positivists, led to a widespread assumption among social scientists that any trafficking in artistic premises, principles, or procedures serves to sully and discredit their work. Nevertheless, within the twentieth century certain developments began challenging the clear distinction ... log in or subscribe to read full text