文化感知身體的方式：人類學冷熱醫學研究的重新思考

本篇論文利用慈溪道場的田野資料來論證冷熱醫學的實踐及冷熱食物的分類，是成員長期在文化的環境中所培養之一種「感知身體的方式」，而並非是單純的冷熱二元對立之觀念區辨的成果。因此，從感知的角度來研究文化與醫療的課題，當可開啟一個新的視野。筆者主張：不同文化的成員以不同的方式感知內在與外在的世界，文化以各自獨特的角度組合感官知覺(senses)，賦予感官各自的價值與彼此的階序關係，並發展出具有文化獨特意涵之感知的項目(即本文所稱之「身體感」)。文化的成員從出生起即開始從文化所教導的角度認識身體，分辨身體的感覺與狀況，並學習調節身體的方法，因而冷熱不只是一種文化觀念性的知識，更是一種從文化的觀點感受、瞭解及調節身體狀況的方式與能力。欲深入研究冷熱醫學的實踐，人類學家應將冷熱放在其他眾多而且同等重要之身體感項目所組成之複雜網絡，與這些網絡所形成之具有文化特色的感知方式上來瞭解。

This article argues for a sensuous approach to humoral medicine, highlighting how medical anthropology can benefit from studying what I call ’the culturally sensuous style of the body.’ Hot and cold classification has been one of the most popular medical constructs cross-culturally until this day and is one of the most well-researched topics in medical anthropology. However, past studies have tended to overemphasize the ideological aspects of hot and cold classification and seldom look into the experiential aspects of this medical practice. By using ethnographic data collected from a Taiwanese Buddhist group, this article demonstrates how cultural knowledge about the body shapes and at the same time is shaped by the body’s experience. The practice of hot and cold medicine can be better understood within complex webs of other, equally important, categories of somatic experience. These webs of categories form culturally distinctive ways of sensing both the body and the outside world.