Technical Concepts and Contexts of Olfaction: c.1700-c.1900

这个项目是对18世纪和19世纪的嗅觉科学和技术方法的历史调查。在这段历史中，我们将考察五个相互关联的趋势：(1)启蒙运动前对嗅觉的理解对后来的技术努力的影响；(2)英法启蒙运动中对嗅觉的自然哲学探究及其对人文科学发展的影响；(3)自然科学，特别是化学中与嗅觉有关的学科发展；(4)生产有气味物质所涉及的工艺传统及其随后的工业化；(5)在生命科学的背景下对嗅觉的兴趣。这些主题在关于感觉和知觉的概念和实践方法的关键文献中得到了稀疏的处理。嗅觉和气味的技术方法将与最近在科学对象传记类型中的STS工作的精神相同。所讨论的对象气味（这里指的是感官模式和现象本身）将使用一系列六个重要的历史优势来描述，每个优势都强调同一个正在进行的故事的一个特定方面。这些片段将在上下文中阐明嗅觉科学领域的重要人物，如林奈、福克罗伊、克洛凯、兹瓦尔德梅克和拉蒙·卡哈尔的工作。此外，将研究与嗅觉相关的各种学科和企业的机构趋势，使用这组离散的有利位置来突出不同的观点。本研究将同时强调哲学和历史主题。哲学方面将强调嗅觉作为知识的潜在和实际来源的作用，以及这一作用对知识生产理论的影响。详细的历史记录将展示过去三个世纪以来人们对嗅觉的持久技术兴趣，并描述相关理论、实践和技术的逐步发展。更好地了解过去与嗅觉有关的发展有可能影响许多领域。虽然嗅觉在经验和情感上都很强大，但在技术和哲学圈子里，嗅觉经常被忽视或嘲笑。最近，STS方面的新工作已开始纠正这种疏忽，但鉴于许多可能产生影响的领域，美国的专门知识基础仍然不发达。嗅觉提供了一个有价值的视角，从这个视角出发，我们可以探讨科学中认知工具的基本作用，以及表征与现实、主观与客观经验之间可能存在的区别。此外，嗅觉的物质化学性质使其在化学的历史和概念研究中具有特殊的兴趣，有助于将这一调查领域与认识论、本体论和技术哲学的问题直接联系起来。因此，资助这项工作的更广泛影响将包括：(1)促进不同科学和技术观点之间的跨学科联系；(2)对STS中未被研究的课题有重大贡献；(3)促进在重要的历史和概念问题上的国际对话，直到最近，在这个国家一直被忽视。

This project is an historical investigation into scientific and technological approaches to the sense of smell in the 18th and 19th centuries. Five interrelated trends in this history will be examined: (1) the influence of pre-Enlightenment understandings of olfaction on later technical endeavors; (2) natural philosophical inquiry into the sense of smell in the British and French Enlightenment and its impact on the growth of the human sciences; (3) disciplinary developments related to olfaction in the natural sciences, especially chemistry; (4) the craft traditions involved in-and subsequent industrialization of-the production of odoriferous substances; and (5) interest in olfaction in the context of the life sciences. These topics have received sparse treatment in the critical literature on conceptual and practical approaches to sensation and perception. Technical approaches to olfaction and odor will be approached in the same spirit as recent STS work in the genre known as biography of scientific objects. The object in question smell (here meaning both the sensory mode and the phenomenon itself) will be characterized using a series of six important historical vantage points, each emphasizing a particular aspect of the same ongoing story. These episodes will illuminate, in context, the work of such important figures in olfactory science as Linnaeus, Fourcroy, Cloquet, Zwaardemaaker, and Ramon y Cajal. In addition, institutional trends in the various disciplines and enterprises related to smell will be examined, using this set of discrete vantage points to highlight different perspectives. This study will emphasize both philosophical and historical themes in conjunction. The philosophical aspect will accentuate the role attributed to olfaction as a potential and actual source of knowledge, and the consequences of this role for theories of knowledge production. The detailed historical account will demonstrate the abiding technical interest in smell in the past three centuries and describe the gradual development of related theories, practices, and techniques. A better understanding of past developments related to smell has the potential to influence a number of fields. While experientially and emotionally powerful, olfaction has often been ignored or derided in both technical and philosophical circles. Recently, new work in STS has begun to redress some of this inattention, but the base of expertise in the United States remains underdeveloped given the many potential areas of impact. Smell provides a valuable perspective from which to approach questions about the fundamental role of epistemic instruments in the sciences, and the possible distinctions between representation and reality and between subjective and objective experience. Furthermore, the material-chemical nature of olfaction makes it of special interest in historical and conceptual studies of chemistry, helping to connect this area of inquiry quite directly to issues of epistemology, ontology, and the philosophy of technology. Thus, broader impacts of funding this work will include: (1) fostering of interdisciplinary connections among different perspectives on science and technology; (2) significant contributions to under-examined topics in STS; and (3) promotion of international dialogue on important historical and conceptual issues that have, until lately, been disregarded in this country.