Recipes, ‘technologies’, experiments: Enactment and the emergence of modern science

PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0251

This is a PCE Research Grant (2021-2023) hosted by the ICUB-Humanities. Its purpose is the investigation of the gradual transformation of recipes, in the seventeenth century, into forms of recording more characteristic for the scientific experiments. The focal point of our investigation is the transformation of knowledge embodied in recipes. To date, this process was mainly described in terms of material practices, structures of knowledge and epistemic genres. We aim to approach it with a set of conceptual tools coming from the philosophy of science.

We focus on the process of disambiguation through which tacit knowledge embodied in the recipes was gradually spelled out, tried, tested, reformulated and transformed. We call this process “enactment”. A key goal of our project is to define and exemplify forms and strategies of enacting recipes. A second goal is to show that the passage from recipes to experiments is neither straightforward, nor univocal. Enacting recipes does not always lead to scientific experimentation. Sometimes, the end product is something different. We call this alternative product of enactment “technology,” and an important part of this project will investigate the emergence of several early modern technologies, discussing their complex relations with recipes and experiments. More on “technologies” here.