Fig 2. Microbiome research troubles the idea that the human is more than mere nature.

A powerful dualism holds that humans are more than mere nature. A major consequence of this dualism is the emergence of two different kinds of sciences: the arts, concerned with manifestations of human freedom, and the sciences, studying nature as a realm of mechanical laws. Microbiome research troubles the idea that the human is more than mere nature because the human is contingent on microbes. How to render visible the human as a question in terms of the insight produced by microbiome research is a profound challenge of the contemporary, one that requires a radically new configuration of research beyond the arts and the sciences as they now exist.