Thesis ID: CBB809833125

The Chemical Revolution as Scientific, Political and Semantic Revolution (2018)

unapi

Best, Nicholas W. (Author)
Cat, Jordi (Advisor)


Indiana University
Cat, Jordi


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 310 pp.
Language: English

The biggest rupture in the history of chemistry occurred in the late eighteenth century when the phlogiston model of combustion was replaced with oxygen theory. This Chemical Revolution included the reconceptualization of chemical elements and the reform of chemical nomenclature. Surprisingly, an upheaval of this sort had been anticipated by previous generations and the scientists of this period understood that a revolution was happening, thinking of it in political terms. However, I show that their positions with respect to chemistry did not determine the roles they went on to play in the French Revolution. The Chemical Revolution was a profound break in the history of chemistry and a transformation of that degree has not been seen since. This is because changes to chemical theory, language and ontological commitments to particular kinds of chemical entities were so well integrated. Scientific change is often assumed to be a distinctively progressive and rational process. However, when two scientific theories are based on radically different presuppositions, they are said to be incommensurable—they cannot be reconciled, even if some comparison is possible. This would suggest that the history of science has proceeded in an irrational way, violating any standard of progress or advancement. I demonstrate that a new sort of epistemic problem arises around the Chemical Revolution. Theoretical changes since the revolution have not seriously impaired chemists’ ability to communicate meaningfully about chemical entities because their terms refer to stable natural kinds. However, chemistry of earlier generations, based on chemical “principles”, used a fundamentally different way of referring to the world. Lacking a common mode of linguistic reference implies a new type of incommensurability, at a higher level. This meta-incommensurability is an even greater threat to the possibility of advancing genuine knowledge in chemistry (and in science in general) because it means that the scientific theories in question cannot be compared at all. I show that the concern is indeed serious but it is far from universal.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB809833125/

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Authors & Contributors
McEvoy, John G.
Kawashima, Keiko
Boantza, Victor D.
John A. Stewart
Sandro Tirini
Silva, Marcos Rodrigues da
Concepts
Chemistry
Phlogiston
Revolutions in science
Oxygen
Biographies
Historiography
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
Places
France
Great Britain
Germany
Ireland
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