The Use of Stimmung in the Sciences and Humanities. Looking at the History of the Division between the “Two Cultures” from the Perspective of a Figure of Thought
This article questions the existence of a schism between the 'two cultures' (C.P. Snow) by showing that the dichotomy between the sciences and the humanities is part of a narrative that developed in the 19th century. By focusing on the historical usage of Stimmung as specific figure of thought in the discourses of physiology, psychology, psychiatry, and aesthetics, the notion of a divorce between the sciences and the humanities is replaced by one of continuous exchange between various fields of knowledge. Stimmung, a term originally referring to the musical praxis of tuning instruments, was used extensively in German publications between 1770 and 1890 in all the fields of knowledge mentioned above. Its circulation between these fields both before and during the formation of independent disciplines in the late 19th century illustrates the continuity of exchange, even in those cases where the actors themselves use Stimmung as an argument for positioning their specific area of research within one of the “two cultures”.