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Descartes's Stove

Guest post by Hsuan L. Hsu, author of Air Conditioning Because they were available long before artificial cooling, heating technologies are at the center of many early Western writings that reflect the cultural underpinnings of thermal comfort and air conditioning. Among the most eloquent examples of ambient temperature as a precondition for thought is the… Read More »

Here, he writes, “I was completely free to converse with myself about my thoughts.” That night, Descartes had three dreams: in the first, a strong wind forced him against a church; in the second, he witnessed a light-filled vision in a room while a storm raged outside; and in the third, he sat at his desk and read in an encyclopedia Quod vitae sectabor iter? While researchers have devoted considerable attention to improving AC technology and studying optimal indoor temperatures, we know comparatively little about the implications of the variable availability of air conditioning across time and space for psychology, health, culture, and socioeconomic inequality. Descartes’s suppressed dependence on the stove provokes the question at the heart of my book, Air Conditioning: how have social relations, culture, and everyday experiences been quietly shaped by air-conditioning technologies that modify indoor temperatures in some places while intensifying the effects of climate change elsewhere?

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