Abstract Aesthetic experiences are slowly but increasingly gaining attention in the contemporary philosophy of science. However, they remain peripheral in debates about research environments dealing with complex socio-environmental problems. Through a socially engaged and empirically oriented approach, I examine the aesthetic experiences in achievements of understanding in two research environments from the sustainability sciences: the ClimArtLab Evolving Futures Owing Our Mess and the Council of Care . I further the debate by presenting a relational account of aesthetics in scientific understanding, where understanding is a triadic engagement between subject, object and environment mediated by aesthetic experiences.
Luana Poliseli (Mon,) studied this question.