Kuipers over Comparatief Realisme

Theo Kuipers’ Comparative realism appeals to aesthetic criteria for establishing how theories near the truth. My commentary suggests that aesthetic criteria, such as beauty, have a power to existentially prove something’s reality only when they are taken to supervene on a perceptual access to it. Yet, the aesthetic criteria used in Kuipers’ argument are meant to apply to theories—a more beautiful theory is argued to be more adequate than its less beautiful rival—and it is not clear how they function as aesthetic criteria, rather than as theoretical considerations understood confusedly.
‘Kuipers over comparatief realisme’, Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte, jrg. 100:3, 2008, 203-205.
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