Methode de nomenclature chimique

Isabelle Stengers and Judith Schlanger, Les concepts scientifiques Invention etpouvoir (Paris Editions La Decouverte, 1988) and Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, A propos de methode de nomenclature chimique Esquisse historique suivie du texte de 1787 (Paris Centre de Documentation Sciences Humaines, 1983). 

A Propos de methode de nomenclature chimique Esquisse historique suivie du texte de 1787. Paris Centre de Documentation Sciences Humaines, 1983. 

In 1787 Guyton de Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet, and Fourcroy introduced in their Methode de nomenclature chimique the terms carbone, for the element carbon, instead of charbon (charcoal) and acide carbonique (carbon dioxide) instead of air fixe ( fixed air ). 

A.-L. Lavoisier, Memoire sur la necessite de reformer et du perfectionner la nomenclature de la chemie, published in Methode de nomenclature chimique, propose par MM, de MorveaUy Lavoisier Berthollet, et de Fourcroy (Paris, 1787). Quotation from Oeuvres de Lavoisiery vol. 5, 354-364 at 361. 

B. Bensaude-Vincent, Methode de Nomenclature Chimique [Par] L. B. Guyton de Morveau A. L. Lavoisier, C. L. Berthollet et A. F. de Fourcroy, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1994. 

In Baron Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau Methode de nomenclature chimique (p. 16)... 

See B. Bensaude-Vincent s introduction to L. B. Guyton de Morveau, A. L. Lavoisier, C. L. Berthollet, and A. E de Fourcroy, Methode de nomenclature chimique (Seuil, 1994). See also W. R. Albury, The Logic of Condillac and the Structure of French Chemical and Biological Theory, 1780-1801, Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1972 John G. McEvoy, The Enlightenment and the Chemical Revolution, in Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. R. Woolhouse (Kluwer, 1988). 

Fourcroy, Antoine-Fran9ois de. Memoire pour servir Texplication du tableau de nomenclature (1787). 109-122 in Methode de nomenclature chimique (Paris Seuil, 1994). 

Guyton de Morveau, Louis-Bernard. Memoire sur le developpement des principes de la nomenclature methodique, lu a FAcademie, le 2 mai 1787. 75-108 in Methode de nomenclature chimique (Seuil, 1994). 

Berthollet, Morveau, and Fourcroy, decided to formulate a new nomenclature for chemistry based on Lavoisier s work. They believed that to reform chemistry, it had to be reformed completely, with a new language of chemistry for a new system of chemistry. Their work was published in 1787 as Methode de nomenclature chimique. It is from this work that the modern system of naming chemicals developed. It introduced word endings like -ic to represent acids and -ide to indicate oxides. 

Condillac, Lavoisier and Nomenclature Reform Contrary to the historiography of the crucial year , which focused on Lavoisier s early training in experimental physics and Rouellian chemistry, the historians of science William Albury, Marco Beretta and Trevor Levere located the core of the Chemical Revolution in the epistemological and linguistic principles underlying the Methode de Nomenclature Chimique, published in 1787, and the Traite Elementaire de Chimie, which appeared two years later. Influenced by Crosland s... 

The language of science, Lavoisier, maintained in his Methode de Nomenclature Chimique, was itself an analytical instrument. The system of chemical nomenclature that he devised gave us for every substance, in a word or two, a clean indication of its chemical nature and composition. That even after more than two centuries of further discovery since he devised this system, it has survived until today, with very little modification, is but a testament to his exceptional vision. Lavoisier s influence on the course of modern chemistry indeed cannot be overemphasized. 

Fourcroy, Antoine Frau9ois, comte de (1755—1809) French chemist he collaborated with Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau, and Claude Berthollet on the Methode de nomenclature chimique. 

As its title states, the Methode de nomenclature chimique was a treatise on chemical nomenclature, or, more precisely, on the methods of constructing names of chemical substances. As Lavoisier stressed, the aim of the work was to present a method for systematic naming— mmc methode de nommer Classification was one prerequisite of this method, and linguistic rules were another. Whereas the authors elaborated broadly on the latter—not only in the opening Memoire by Lavoisier, but also on several occasions in Guyton s Memoire—, they said almost nothing about their mode of classifying, at least not verbally, in the essays of the Methode. Yet their classification is presented in form of a table inserted in the Methode, the Tableau de la nomenclature chimique. 

Much has been written on the Methode de nomenclature chimique, and much has been said in praise of the Tableau of the Methode and its outstanding significance in the history of early modem chemistry. But despite this unanimously shared assessment and appreciation, no thorough and exhaustive analysis of the Tableau s classification of chemical substances has been presented by any historian of science up to now. Only the first column of the table, the column for simple substances, was hitherto subjected to closer inspection. Thus our analysis of the table s classification cannot build on the results of earlier investigations, but has to start from scratch. This means we first have to provide an overview on the table to which we can refer and return whenever desirable in the course of the subsequent investigations. In what follows we will first describe the arrangement of the table and then analyze its classification s formal features. 

The analysis of the classification of plant materials in the Methode de nomenclature chimique, presented at the beginning of chapter 14, creates an important link between parts II and III of this book. This analysis first shows the ambition of Lavoisier and his collaborators to extend classification according to composition to plant substances, and, second, their failure in terms of collective acceptance. The next section of the chapter continues this analysis of their failure inasmuch as it points out the theoretical limits of the Lavoisierian analytical program. As Lavoisier s theory of the elemental composition of organic substances did not include the assumption of stoichiometric organic compounds, it was unsuitable as a working tool for the envisioned analytical mode of identification and classification of organic compounds. 

Abbri, Ferdinando and Mateo Beretta. 1995. BibHogiaphy of the Methode de nomenclature chimique and of the Traite elementaire de chimie and their Emopean Translations (1787 1800). In Lavoisier in European Context, edited hy Bernadette Bensaude- ncent and Ferdinando Ahhri, 279 291. Canton, MA Watson Puhhshing International. 

Berthollet, Fourcroy Methode de nomenclature chimique, 9-60. Paris Editions du Seuil. -------. 1995. Introductory Essay A Geographical History of Eighteenth-Century Chemis-... 

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