[Report] "How Humans Became Organisms: Some Reflections on the Transition from the Soul-Body-Problem to the Organism-Milieu-Interface"
On December 7, Dr. Tobias Cheung (Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin and Institute for Culture and Science, Humboldt-University, Berlin) gave a talk "How Humans Became Organisms: Some Reflections on the Transition from the Soul-Body-Problem to the Organism-Milieu-Interface."
Dr. Cheung specilizes in history of the life sciences. His talk focused on the problem of how human beings came to be perceived as organisms, referring to the works of Georg Stahl, Charles Bonnet, Georges Cubier, Henri de Blainville, Auguste Comte, and others.
It is beyond my ability to summarize the talk with full of historical details. The gist was that human beings understood in terms of the soul-body interface from 1700 till 1830 came to be seen in terms of the organism-milieu interface from 1830 till the second third of the 19th century. Some might think that this is a simple historical study, but Dr. Cheung intends to investigate how the organism-milieu interface was transformed to the stimulus-response interface and how the latter influenced modern society, mentioning scholars such as Arnold Gehlen, Helmut Plessner, and Martin Heidegger. In this regard, his talk was comprehensive.
(Written by Kei Yoshida)