Fermentation: A Cultural History of Knowledge

发酵是科学和医学思想史上最有争议的现象之一。作为最古老的食品加工技术之一，它也唤醒了哲学家、医生和酿酒师的兴趣，他们将发酵在黄金生产、血液形成或胚胎形成等不同领域中发挥作用。尽管发酵在西方思想中无处不在，但没有涵盖这些惊人的不同发酵理论的历史研究。在不试图详尽无遗的情况下，本项目旨在重建这些多方面历史中的一些，其各个方面-例如，发酵和腐败与传染的关系，疾病和健康-我的研究项目的总体目标是提请注意发酵理论的更广泛的相关性，以帮助我们理解发酵理论和发酵理论。西方医学和科学思想中的自然世界和人类自我。 该项目通过强调不同知识领域之间的解释模式的共享，有助于重新配置两种文化之间的鸿沟。通过这种方式，它参与了科学史和人文历史的“和解”，这是近年来科学和哲学的主要历史学家所呼吁的。

Fermentation is one of the most contested phenomena in the history of scientific and medical thought. One of the oldest food processing technologies, it has also awoken the interest of philosophers, physicians, and alchemists, who have assigned fermentation a role in realms as disparate as the production of gold, blood formation, or the formation of the embryo. Despite the ubiquity of fermentation in Western thought, there is no encompassing historical study covering these strikingly diverse fermentation theories. Without attempting to be exhaustive, the present project aims at a reconstruction of some of these manifold histories, whose various aspects – like, for instance, the relationship of fermentation and putrefaction with contagion, disease and health – continue to resonate in our contemporary world.The overarching goal of my research project is to draw attention to the broader relevance of fermentation theories for our understanding of both the natural world and the human self within Western medical and scientific thought. This project contributes to reconfiguring the divide between the two cultures by highlighting the sharing of explanation models among various realms of knowledge. In this way, it participates in the ‘rapprochement’ of the history of sciences and the history of humanities called upon in recent years by leading historians of science and of philosophy.