Fermentation: A Cultural History of Knowledge

发酵是科学和医学思想史上最具争议的现象之一。作为最古老的食品加工技术之一，它也引起了哲学家、内科医生和炼金术士的兴趣，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了作用。尽管发酵在西方思想中无处不在，但没有一项包罗万象的历史研究涵盖这些截然不同的发酵理论。本项目并不试图详尽无遗，但本项目旨在重建其中一些多种多样的历史，这些历史的各个方面--例如，发酵和腐烂与传染病、疾病和健康的关系--继续在我们的当代世界产生共鸣。我研究项目的首要目标是引起人们对发酵理论在西方医学和科学思想中对自然世界和人类自我的理解的更广泛相关性的关注。该项目通过强调不同知识领域之间的解释模式共享，有助于重新划分两种文化之间的鸿沟。通过这种方式，它参与了近年来主要的科学史和哲学史学者所呼吁的科学史和人文史的“和解”。

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.