Tracing Microbial Ontologies in Scientific Practice - From Object of Inquiry to Technological Tool

微生物学哲学的核心问题集中在微生物进化如何挑战进化理论的关键原则和合法生命形式的定义。另一方面，科学技术研究探索了微生物学的物质特征，同时特别关注科学实践中的价值和责任问题。Helmreich和Paxson还强调了微生物日益增加的社会相关性，他们呼吁人们关注围绕微生物群落的见解如何成为人类关系安排的规范（2014）。通过相关科学实验的案例研究，本文将探讨科学和技术研究中的理论，包括实验系统理论，代理现实主义和本体论政治，是否可以被用来探索科学实践影响他们所研究的微生物的方式。这些理论假设实验实践不仅产生关于其研究对象的知识，而且还配置这些对象是什么——换句话说，实验实践塑造了它们所针对对象的本体论。事实上，莱茵伯格的实验系统方法表明，观察的研究对象和“技术工具”（1992年a，第310页）并不预先存在于科学实践中，而是通过实验的物质条件来实现的（1992年a）。同样，Barad的代理现实主义方法强调，在科学实践发生之前，直接的主体/客体区分并不存在，而是通过区分主体和客体的“边界制造实践”（2007年，第148页）创造出来的。本文将通过在本体论政治的背景下分析微生物与实验实践的相互作用，有助于讨论物质实践与科学对象本体论之间的相互作用。这种方法关注的是物质实践以不同的方式制定代理/对象区分的过程，同时也关注不同背景下不同对象制定之间的关系。因此，本文将询问从本体论政治的角度解决微生物学，分子生物学或生物技术中不同的微生物行为之间的关系是否可以导致关于微生物在各种科学实验中所起作用的新见解。通过汇集一系列与本体论有关的哲学和社会学方法，本文将为理解科学实践与它们所涉及的生物体的本体论之间的关系提供原创的理论贡献。该项目将是第一个研究微生物的地位如何从调查对象转变为一系列生物技术应用的技术工具的研究。指导论文的中心问题是，随着微生物学接触到新的科学领域和生物技术应用，微生物的地位从研究对象转变为技术工具，微生物的本体论在多大程度上发生了变化。该项目的前半部分将采用基于文献的方法，以便提供微生物参与科学实践和生物技术的案例研究。这些分析将基于描述微生物实验的科学论文，以及提出在生物技术中使用微生物的研究。在可能的情况下，这些分析还将包括科学家对他们的实验的个人描述，这些描述可以通过自传或公开访问的采访获得。拟议项目的后半部分将利用基于实验室观察的人种学研究，以及对科学家的采访，以询问微生物如何成为生物技术和气候变化研究的工具。

The central questions in philosophy of microbiology focus on how microbial evolution challenges key tenets of evolutionary theories and definitions of legitimate life forms. On the other hand, science and technology studies has explored the material features of microbiology, while specifically focusing on questions surrounding value and responsibility in scientific practice. Helmreich and Paxson have also highlighted the increasing social relevance of microbes by calling attention to how insights surrounding microbial communities have become prescriptive for the arrangement of human relations (2014).Through case studies of relevant scientific experiments, the thesis will ask whether theories within science and technology studies, including theories of experimental systems, agential realism and ontological politics could be adopted to explore the ways in which scientific practices affect the microbes they study. These theories postulate that experimental practices do not only produce knowledge about their objects of inquiry, but they also configure what these objects are-in other words, experimental practices shape the ontology of the objects they target. Indeed, Rheinberger's experimental systems approach foregrounds that objects of study and the "technological tools" (1992a, p.310) of observation do not preexist scientific practices but are realised by the material conditions of experiments (1992a). Similarly, Barad's agential realist approach foregrounds that straightforward subject/object distinctions do not exist before scientific practices take place, but are created through "boundary-making practices" (2007, p.148) which differentiate agents and objects.The thesis will contribute to discussions of the interplay between material practices and the ontology of scientific objects by situating the analysis of microbes' interactions with experimental practices within the context of ontological politics. This approach is concerned with the processes by which material practices enact agent/object distinctions in disparate ways, while also focusing on the relations between the distinct enactments of objects in different contexts. As such, the thesis will ask whether addressing the relations between disparate enactments of microbes in microbiology, molecular biology or biotechnology from the perspective of ontological politics could lead to new insights about the role microbes play in a variety of scientific experiments.By bringing together a range of philosophical and sociological approaches concerned with ontology, the thesis will provide an original theoretical contribution to understanding the relationship between scientific practices and the ontology of the organisms they enrol. The project will be the first study to address how the status of microbes changes from object of inquiry to technological tool across a range of biotechnological applications. The central question guiding the thesis will be to what extent the ontology of microbes changes as their status shifts from objects of study to technological device as microbiology comes into contact with new scientific fields and biotechnological applications.The first half of the project will adopt a literature-based approach in order to provide case studies of microbes' involvement in scientific practice and biotechnology. The analyses will be based on scientific papers which describe microbiological experiments, as well as research which proposes the use of microbes in biotechnology. Where available, the analyses will also include scientists' personal accounts of their experiments available in autobiographies or publicly accessible interviews. The second half of the proposed project will draw on ethnographic studies based on laboratory observations, as well as interviews with scientists in order to ask how microbes become tools in biotechnology and climate change research.