Premodern Experience in Conversation with the Present

This Theme in Focus transcends the confines of the period between 800 and 1650 and connects our insights on the contours of experience with themes of contemporary relevance. Although experience in the premodern sciences of soul and body cannot be forced into a single method, it nonetheless seems to carry some of its epistemic, moral, and social standards across time and space—indeed, even up to the present day. The Working Group and individual projects in this theme explore how experience is put to use in pursuit of other much-desired epistemic ends; how it is conveyed over generations of scientists within the paradigms of stable epistemic practices; and how it seems to be applied consciously by scientists. Instrumental functions, testimonial forms, and scientists’ agency are but three facets of premodern experience that reveal meaningful connections to empirical practices in present-day science.