Reviewed by:

• Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life: Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800 by Joan Steigerwald
• Sebastian G. Rand

Throughout her wide-ranging study of methods, concepts, and controversies in the life sciences in Germany around 1800, Joan Steigerwald handles an astonishing variety of sources with insight and verve. The story she tells, in both its sweep and its details, challenges entrenched habits and comfortable assumptions of the existing literature and deepens our understanding of the relevant topics, figures, and debates.

The book has a substantial introduction, six chapters, and a brief conclusion. The introduction addresses both general and topic-specific historiological concerns, situating this history in the context of other recent work in science studies and cultural history. The first chapter covers late eighteenth-century theoretical debates, rhetorical strategies, and experimental techniques developed to elucidate the physiological functions (alternately, “vital powers” [70]) of irritability, sensibility, and (de)generation. Steigerwald’s account here is particularly rich in details about experimental techniques, and she argues plausibly that an emphasis on debates over high-level theoretical abstractions (such as an alleged Lebenskraft or life-force) distorted both the contemporary discourse and subsequent historical accounts of actual scientific practice. The second chapter gives a judicious summary of Kant’s third Critique, skillfully tying the local concerns of its second half, on living organisms, to larger Kantian questions about the character of scientific knowledge. The third chapter turns to slightly later physiological studies informed by then-novel chemical and electrical phenomena (e.g. Galvanism) entangled with the phenomena of life. Steigerwald here argues effectively that we should understand contemporary instruments and representational strategies as mediating links between empirical developments and more abstract theoretical advances in comparative anatomy and physiology. The fourth chapter reviews the contributions of Fichte, Novalis, and Goethe to the developments so far described, with particular emphasis on the new linguistic and conceptual forms they championed. In the fifth chapter, Steigerwald turns to Schelling, developing her own theoretical concepts—most centrally, that of the boundary concept—out of his thought. The last chapter—taking its initial bearing, like John Zammito’s Gestation of German Biology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), against certain ill-advised theses of the early Foucault—argues for strong continuity between late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century life science, despite the deceptively abrupt introduction of the term ‘biology’ (into both German and French) in 1802. This chapter includes compelling studies of Gottfried Treviranus and, most strikingly, of Alexander von Humboldt’s uses of images as not only representational but also cognitive and experimental tools.

Although there are no villains in Steigerwald’s history, there are heroes: Johann Christian Reil, Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, and Humboldt on the empirical side; Kant, Novalis, and Schelling on the philosophical side. Her announced aim is to produce a “counterhistory” (38); she does so by reinterpreting the former figures’ practices and results through a distinctive reading of the latter figures’ philosophical and metaphilosophical views. That reading passes through a skilled summary of Kant and an intriguing account of Novalis on its way to hanging her most theoretically ambitious arguments on her interpretation of Schelling. In that interpretation, she argues that Schelling uses an extended conceptual version of the current sociological notion of a boundary object—an object (abstract or concrete) mediating between communities by functioning differently for each while maintaining a common identity across all—to organize his system, including his understanding of scientific and philosophical practice and content, and that we best grasp the character and import of the phenomena making up the object of her study through the Schellingian notion of a boundary concept. Such an interpretation is intriguing but hard to reconcile with Schelling’s texts—even the very passages Steigerwald herself cites. For instance, she is correct (275) that Schelling uses the term Grenzbegriff (boundary concept). Yet in the passage she points to, a Grenzbegriff is not a mediating concept within cognition; it is rather exemplified by the concept of an original force marking a (Kantian) outer [End Page...

审核人：

• 在生命的边界上进行实验：1800年左右，德国的有机生命力（Joan Steigerwald）
• 塞巴斯蒂安·兰德（Sebastian G. Rand）

在1800年左右的整个生命周期中，Joan Steigerwald对德国生命科学的方法，概念和争议进行了广泛的研究，她以洞察力和敏锐的眼光处理了各种惊人的资料。她讲述的故事既详尽又详尽，挑战了现有文献的根深蒂固的习惯和舒适的假设，并加深了我们对相关主题，人物和辩论的理解。

这本书有大量的介绍，六章和简短的结论。引言论述了一般和特定主题的组织学问题，并在科学研究和文化史上其他近期工作的背景下阐述了这一历史。第一章涵盖了18世纪晚期的理论辩论，修辞策略和实验技术，旨在阐明易怒性，敏感性和（变性）的生理功能（或者，“重要力量” [70]）。施泰格瓦尔德（Steigerwald）在这里的论述特别包含有关实验技术的详细信息，并且她有说服力地指出，强调对高级理论抽象的辩论（例如所谓的Lebenskraft）或生命力）扭曲了当代话语和随后的实际科学实践历史记录。第二章对康德的第三批批评作了明智的总结，巧妙地将后半部分对生物的本地关注与关于科学知识特征的更大的康德式问题联系在一起。第三章转向稍稍晚一些的生理学​​研究，这些研究是由当时与生命现象纠缠在一起的新型化学和电学现象（例如电流现象）引起的。施泰格瓦尔德在这里有效地指出，我们应该理解当代的仪器和表征策略，将其作为经验发展与比较解剖学和生理学中更抽象的理论进展之间的中​​介链接。第四章回顾了费希特，诺瓦利斯和歌德对迄今为止所描述的发展的贡献，特别强调了他们所倡导的新的语言和概念形式。在第五章中，施泰格瓦尔德转向谢林，从他的思想中发展出自己的理论概念-最主要的是边界概念。最后一章-像John Zammito一样反对德国生物学的孕育（芝加哥：芝加哥大学出版社，2017年），反对福柯早期的某些不明智的论点-主张在18世纪末至19世纪初的生命科学之间具有强大的连续性，尽管似乎突然引入了生命科学。在1802年，术语“生物学”（包括德语和法语）被包括在内。这一章对Gottfried Treviranus进行了令人信服的研究，最引人注目的是对Alexander von Humboldt将图像不仅用作表示手段，而且将其用作认知和实验工具的研究。

尽管史蒂格瓦尔德的历史上没有反派，但在英雄方面有英雄：约翰·克里斯蒂安·雷尔，约翰·威廉·里特，约翰·弗里德里希·基尔梅耶和洪堡。康德，诺瓦利斯和谢林在哲学方面。她宣布的目标是产生一个“历史”（38）；她通过对后一个人物的哲学和元哲学观点的独特解读来重新解释前一个人物的做法和结果，从而做到了这一点。那篇读物是对康德的一个熟练的总结，以及对诺瓦利斯的一个有趣的解释，诺瓦利斯将她最理论上雄心勃勃的观点挂在了对谢林的解释上。在这种解释中，她认为，谢林使用边界对象的当前社会学概念的扩展概念性版本来组织他的系统，包括他的理解，边界对象是一种在社区之间进行调解的对象（抽象的或具体的），每个对象的功能不同，同时保持所有人的共同身份。的科学和哲学实践和内容，我们最好通过边界概念的谢林式概念来把握构成她的研究对象的现象的特征和重要性。这样的解释很有趣，但很难与谢林的著作调和-甚至史蒂格瓦尔德本人也引用了这些段落。例如，她正确（275）Schelling使用了术语 包括他对科学和哲学实践和内容的理解，以及我们最好地通过边界概念的谢林式概念来把握构成她的研究对象的现象的特征和重要性。这种解释很有趣，但很难与谢林的著作调和-甚至史蒂格瓦尔德本人也引用了这段话。例如，她正确（275）Schelling使用了术语 包括他对科学和哲学实践和内容的理解，以及我们最好地通过边界概念的谢林式概念来把握构成她的研究对象的现象的特征和重要性。这样的解释很有趣，但很难与谢林的著作调和-甚至史蒂格瓦尔德本人也引用了这些段落。例如，她正确（275）Schelling使用了术语Grenzbegriff（边界概念）。然而，在她指出的这段话中，格林兹伯格不是认知中的中介概念；它只是认知中的一个中介概念。它用原始力标记（Kantian）外部[End Page ...