Disciplinary Demarcation

One might think that these endeavours were steered purely by scientific criteria, driven by the dignified pursuit of wisdom, and subjected to nothing but the essential norms of objectivity, falsifiability and truth. But there was more to it than that. What can be discerned behind the cover of disinterested scientific activity are strategic attempts of the leaders of the society to demarcate their field of authority and to actively influence the course of ehemistry in France, while at times even pursuing a very personal agenda. 

In this context the early role of Wurtz in organizing, with the help of the Societe chimique de Paris and its publieations, a deliberate eampaign for the second chemical revolution is quite revealing for the soeiety s difficult struggle for epistemic authority. A second example of the society s arduous attempt to expand its area of disciplinary authority was the boimdary-work it embarked upon at the intersection between pure and applied ehemistry. 

---

Comte s account of disciplinary formation, with its conflation of logical structure and historical order of the sciences, both reflected and influenced the science of its time. In reflecting the science that he personally learned in Paris around 18141818, Comte s positivist history drew on the claims of Lavoisier s colleagues and acolytes that Lavoisier had created the science of chemistry, where none existed before. Comte also relied on this group s demarcation between "physique" and "chimie," a distinction developed more clearly in the French scientific community of the late eighteenth century than elsewhere. 

Often this is combined as above with notions of demarcation and boundary. Articulation of the disciplinary process is often simply summarised as No Work but in the case of... 

As a disciplinary society the Societe chimique had to do boundary-work demarcate its field of expertise, erecting rhetorical boundaries between what chemistry was supposed to be and what it was not supposed to be. The society s disciplinary boundary-work included both monopolizing and expansion of authority. Especially under Wurtz s charismatic leadership, the society tried to take epistemic control in order to advocate certain scientific ideas, as the example of his arduous campaign for atomism shows. The society furthermore pursued both disciplinary and geographical expansion, while trying to suppress competing authority claims made by industrial chemists and the provincial sections, among others. 

---