Marking Out a Disciplinary Common Ground: The Role of Chemical Pedagogy in Establishing the Doctrine of Affinity at the Heart of British Chemistry (2008)
Taylor, Georgette (Author)
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Volume: 65
Pages: 465--486
This paper presents a case study that contributes to the current debate among historians of chemistry concerning the role and influence of pedagogy in science. Recently, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and her colleagues concluded that in nineteenth-century France, 'textbooks played an important role in discipline building and in creating theories'.1 Developing this idea further, this paper examines the dissemination of knowledge through face-to-face chemical lectures, showing that the influence of pedagogical strategy on theoretical content of the science is far from negligible. The pedagogy of William Cullen was essentially responsible for the prevalence of the doctrine of affinity in British chemistry from the 1760s onwards. Cullen used his affinity theory as a pedagogical tool that to a large extent defined his discipline, and the pedagogical pyramid that he headed similarly ensured that the doctrine would remain at the heart of British chemistry. From a pedagogical tool, the doctrine of affinity was transformed over time into a chemical tool, offering British chemists a disciplinary common ground that both set and reinforced the boundaries to their discipline.
...MoreDescription On the pedagogy of William Cullen and its role in British chemistry after 1760.
Similar Citations
Article
Perkins, John;
(2010)
Chemistry Courses, the Parisian Chemical World and the Chemical Revolution, 1770--1790
(/isis/citation/CBB000954579/)
Chapter
Grapí, Pere;
(2011)
The Role of Chemistry Textbooks and Teaching Institutions in France at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century in the Controversy about Berthollet's Chemical Affinities
(/isis/citation/CBB001024415/)
Article
Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette;
(2009)
Le mixte, ou l'affirmation d'une identité de la chimie
(/isis/citation/CBB001021112/)
Article
Taylor, Georgette;
(2014)
Pedagogical Progeniture or Tactical Translation? George Fordyce's Additions and Modifications to William Cullen's Philosophical Chemistry---Part II
(/isis/citation/CBB001451132/)
Article
Barroux, Gilles;
(2009)
Affinités éclectiques entre chimie et médecine: l'exemple des jeux de renvois dans les articles CHIMIE et MEDECINE de l'Encyclopédie
(/isis/citation/CBB001021114/)
Article
Lehman, Christine;
(2010)
Innovation in Chemistry Courses in France in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: Experiments and Affinities
(/isis/citation/CBB000954578/)
Article
Kim, Mi Gyung;
(2009)
Entre la physique et la chimie: l'affinité chimique dans l'Encyclopédie
(/isis/citation/CBB001021113/)
Thesis
John A. Stewart;
(2013)
Chemical Affinity in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Physiology and Agriculture
(/isis/citation/CBB001567441/)
Chapter
Bernadette Bensaude Vincent;
(2018)
Teaching Chemistry in the French Revolution: Pedagogy, Materials and Politics
(/isis/citation/CBB390586705/)
Article
Quílez, Juan;
(2006)
The Role of Theories in Early Studies of Chemical Equlibria
(/isis/citation/CBB000741585/)
Article
Golinski, Jan;
(2012)
Humphry Davy: The Experimental Self
(/isis/citation/CBB001231164/)
Book
Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette;
García Belmar, Antonio;
Bertomeu Sánchez, José Ramón;
(2003)
L'émergence d'une science des manuels: les livres de chimie en France (1789-1852)
(/isis/citation/CBB000771930/)
Article
Taylor, Georgette;
(2006)
Unification Achieved: William Cullen's Theory of Heat and Phlogiston as an Example of his Philosophical Chemistry
(/isis/citation/CBB000771294/)
Book
Kim, Mi Gyung;
(2003)
Affinity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000301511/)
Article
Rowlinson, J. S.;
(2003)
Le Sage's Essai de chymie méchanique
(/isis/citation/CBB000300272/)
Article
Kim, Mi Gyung;
(2008)
The “Instrumental” Reality of Phlogiston
(/isis/citation/CBB000960289/)
Book
Khaled Furani;
(2019)
Redeeming Anthropology: A Theological Critique of a Modern Science
(/isis/citation/CBB286484093/)
Article
Wolf Feuerhahn;
(2020)
Moral sciences, Geisteswissenschaften (1795-1900)
(/isis/citation/CBB340389473/)
Article
Dyde, Sean;
(2015)
Cullen, a Cautionary Tale
(/isis/citation/CBB001552767/)
Book
Mansoor Niaz;
(2016)
Chemistry Education and Contributions from History and Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB408296940/)
Be the first to comment!