Best, Nicholas W. (Author)
Cat, Jordi (Advisor)
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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Book
Frercks, Jan;
(2008)
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier: System der antiphlogistischen Chemie
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Essay Review
Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette;
Golinski, Jan;
Roberts, Lissa L.;
McEvoy, John;
(2012)
Historiography in a Metaphysical Mode
(/isis/citation/CBB001566767/)
Chapter
Carrier, Martin;
(2009)
Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier und die Chemische Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001023709/)
Book
McEvoy, John G.;
(2010)
The Historiography of the Chemical Revolution: Patterns of Interpretation in the History of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001022984/)
Article
Kawashima, Keiko;
(2004)
Marie Anne Lavoisier (1758--1836): une vie, deux révolution, la révolution chimique et la Révolution française
(/isis/citation/CBB000600657/)
Article
Silva, Marcos Rodrigues da;
(2013)
Ensino de ciências: realismo, antirrealismo e a construção do conceito de oxigênio
(/isis/citation/CBB001420650/)
Article
Miller, David Philip;
Levere, Trevor H.;
(2008)
“Inhale It and See?” The Collaboration between Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in Pneumatic Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB000774132/)
Article
Schütt, Hans-Werner;
(2009)
Noch ein “Vorentdecker” des Sauerstoffs: Abraham Eleazar
(/isis/citation/CBB001220765/)
Article
Feng, Xiang;
(2009)
Berthollet's and Kirwan's Phlogiston Theories and Their Fates
(/isis/citation/CBB000952325/)
Article
Kim, Mi Gyung;
(2011)
From Phlogiston to Caloric: Chemical Ontologies
(/isis/citation/CBB001024703/)
Article
Boantza, Victor;
(2008)
The Phlogistic Role of Heat in the Chemical Revolution and the Origins of Kirwan's “Ingenious Modifications...Into the Theory of Phlogiston”
(/isis/citation/CBB000774842/)
Article
Boantza, Victor D.;
Gal, Ofer;
(2011)
The “Absolute Existence” of Phlogiston: The Losing Party's Point of View
(/isis/citation/CBB001024705/)
Article
Hoyningen-Huene, Paul;
(2008)
Thomas Kuhn and the Chemical Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000930621/)
Article
Lewowicz, Lucía;
(2011)
Phlogiston, Lavoisier and the Purloined Referent
(/isis/citation/CBB001024187/)
Article
Newcomb, Sally;
(2012)
Richard Kirwan (1733--1812)
(/isis/citation/CBB001251743/)
Article
Kawashima, Keiko;
(2003)
Madame Lavoisier et l'Essai sur le phlogistique
(/isis/citation/CBB000470206/)
Book
Sandro Tirini;
(2021)
Vita di Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, contessa di Rumford
(/isis/citation/CBB882603015/)
Article
Fara, Patricia;
(2010)
Joseph Priestley: Docter Phlogiston or Reverend Oxygen?
(/isis/citation/CBB001210108/)
Article
Lehman, Christine;
(2009)
Les deux faces de la chimie de Venel: Côté cours, côté Encyclopédie
(/isis/citation/CBB001021111/)
Article
John A. Stewart;
(2012)
The Reality of Phlogiston in Great Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001211126/)
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