The aesthetic ground of scientific inquiry

This article is about the relationship between visions and theory. In the modern vision, the world is a collection of things. In the process vision, the world is a system of relationships. Each of these visions structures inquiry in a distinct way. If the world is a collection of things, time and place are irrelevant and knowledge is objective. If it is a system of relationships, context determines meaning and knowledge. In the modern vision, regularity is a matter of equivalence, while in the process vision, regularity is a matter of order. Visions shape scientific inquiry, but they are not themselves scientific, for they cannot be grounded in facts about the world. Instead, they are aesthetic judgments with claims of subjective universality. Moreover, shared aesthetic commitments align thinkers in diverse fields. The present article illustrates how F. A. Hayek's The Sensory Order and Alfred Schütz's Phenomenology of the Social World</italic> flow from the process vision and can help scholars understand it.