Philosophy of chemistry

Unlike some lovers of the periodic table, I am not somebody who played with chemicals or minerals at a young age. My attraction to the periodic table was more in the realm of ideas. It is not too surprising looking back now that I should have ended up with an interest in history and philosophy of chemistry.2... 

E. R. Scerri, Collected Papers on Philosophy of Chemistry, Imperial College Press, London, 2008. 

E. R. Scerri, Normative and Descriptive Philosophy of Science and the Role of Chemistry, in Philosophy of Chemistry, the Synthesis of a New Discipline, D. Baird, E. R. Scerri, L. McIntyre (eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 242, pp. 119-128, 2005 E. R. Scerri, Philosophy of Chemistry — A New Interdisciplinary Field Journal of Chemical Education 77 522-526, 2000. 

Schwarz also makes the interesting identification between neutral atoms and elements as simple substances on one hand, and between bonded atoms and elements as basic substances on the other hand. As a frequent participant at conferences on the philosophy of chemistry, Schwarz seems to have fully grasped the importance of this distinction between the two senses of the macroscopic element. Whether or not his one-to-one identification of the dual sense of an element with microscopic atoms is meaningful remains to be seen, but here I argue that he is mistaken. 

Eric Scerri studied chemistry at the Universities of London, Cambridge and Southampton, and obtained a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from King s College, London on the question of "The Reduction of Chemistry to Quantum Mechanics," He has been a research felloiu in the history and philosophy of science at the London School of Economics and at the California Institute of Technology. He is currently an assistant professor of chemistry at Bradley University, where he also teaches histoiy and philosophy of chemistry, which are also his main research interests. He is editor of the new journal Foundations of Chemistry. Address Department of Chemistry, Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625. Internet scerri bradley.edu. 

It is indeed a great honor to be invited to contribute to this memorial volume. I should say from the outset that I never met Lowdin but nevertheless feel rather familiar with at least part of his wide-ranging writing. In 1986 I undertook what I believe may have been the first PhD thesis in the new field of philosophy of chemistry. My topic was the question of the reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics. Not surprisingly this interest very soon brought me to the work of Lowdin and in particular his analysis of rigorous error bounds in ab initio calculations (Lowdin, 1965). 

The examination of this idea has subsequently formed an integral part of my research in the philosophy of chemistry. This has also led to a certain amount of disagreement with other authors who appear to interpret Lowdin s remark in a somewhat different manner (Ostrovsky, 2001). I now deeply regret not having contacted Lowdin directly in order to seek his own clarification. In the present contribution I intend to revisit this question and to take the opportunity to respond to some critics as well as hopefully injecting some new ideas into the discussion. 

HYLE international journal for philosophy of chemistry. 1995-.rhttp //www.hvle.org1. 

Physics and Chemistry Commensurate or Incommensurate Sciences " The Invention of Physical Science Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy Since the Seventeenth Century. Essays in Honor of Erwin N. Hiebert, ed. Mary Jo Nye et al. (Dordrecht Kluwer, 1992) 105224 "National Styles Research Schools in French and English Chemistry, 18801930," Osiris [2]8 (1993) 3049 and "Philosophies of Chemistry since the Eighteenth Century," in Seymour Mauskopf, ed., Chemical Sciences in the Modern World (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, in press). I am grateful for permissions to publish materials previously published. 

Laurent, Gerhardt, and the Philosophy of Chemistry," HSPS 6 (1975) 405429, and "Methods and Methodology in the Development of Organic Chemistry," Ambix 34 (1987) 147155 Rocke, "Kekule s Benzene Theory and the Appraisal of Scientific Theories," 45161, in A. Donovan et al., eds., Scrutinizing Science (Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). On Kuhnian vs. Popperian models, see H. W. 

For an analysis of Laurent s views, see John Hedley Brooke, "Laurent, Gerhardt, and the Philosophy of Chemistry," HSPS 6 (1975) 405429, 411412, 428. 

Roald Hoffmann, "Under the Surface of the Chemical Article," Angewandte Chemie, International Edition in English, 27 (1988) 15931602, on 1597. Also see D. W. Theobald, "Some Considerations on the Philosophy of Chemistry," Chemical Society Reviews 5 (1976) 203213. To his list, Hoffmann more recently added oxidation state and chemical stability in personal correspondence, letter of September 24, 1990. 

Theobald, D. W. "Some Considerations on the Philosophy of Chemistry." Chemical Society Reviews 5 (1976) 203213. 

Rouelle also retained in his organization the hierarchical concept found in the mechanical philosophy of chemistry, as well as in the writings of Becher and Stahl. In the increasing order of complexity, the categories of combination were element or principle as the simplest, mixt (made up of two elements), compound (made of a mixt plus another element), and supercompound (a combination of a compound with a mixt or another compound). As with the older alchemical tradition, the principles or elements could never be obtained in a pure or isolated state. Their presence had to be inferred from the properties of the mixts in which they were found. 

While one is pondering the literature on physical chemistry education, it is worthwhile to think about the philosophy of chemistry as well. Eric Scerri presents a discussion of the implications of the philosophy of science on the teaching of physical chemistry. Often, physical chemistry is viewed as a means of reducing chemical behavior to physics. Eric Scerri points out the pros and cons of this viewpoint and their implications for chemistry education. 

Philosophy of Chemistry, Reduction, Emergence, and Chemical Education... 

In this article I hope to introduce chemical educators to some of the work carried out in the philosophy of chemistry. The relevance of such work and especially that carried out on the reduction of chemistry to physics is considerable, and especially so in the case of physical chemistry. As the very name of the discipline implies, physical chemistry juxtaposes aspects of chemistry with aspects of physics. The relationship between these two classical areas of science needs to be considered in order to ascertain the extent to which chemistry should be taught as applied physics or to inform the teaching of physical chemistry per se. 

Here is one immediately relevant point for chemical educators. These studies carried out in philosophy of chemistry remind us of the approximate nature of physical accounts of chemical phenomena and they document the reductive gap that remains to be bridged, something that quantum chemists and other practitioners are not generally too eager to discuss in publications. 

Let us now delve a little deeper into the philosophy of chemistry. As mentioned above, the conclusion of those working in the field has been that... 

Hyle, Collected Bibliography in History Philosophy of Chemistry , http //www.hyle.org/service/bibilio.htm [accessed 15 May 2005],... 

P. J. Ramberg, Johannes Wislicenus, atomism and the philosophy of chemistry , Bull. Hist. Chem., 1994,15/16, 45-54. 

For an overview of the alchemical donum dei, see Vladimir Karpenko, "Alchemy as Donum Dei, " Hyle An International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry 4 (1998) 63-80. 

The two friends continued to work together and in 1838 they published the results of their experiments on uric acid, another organic compound. It was in this report that these pioneers foresaw the great future of organic chemistry. The philosophy of chemistry," they wrote, must draw the conclusion that the synthesis of all organic compounds must be looked upon not merely as probable but as certain of ultimate achievement. Sugar, salicin, morphine, will be artificially prepared." This was indeed prophetic. 

In Russell McCormmach (ed.) Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences Sixth Annual Volume In John Hedley Brooke Laurent, Gerhatdt, and the Philosophy of Chemistry (p. 424)... 

Fourcroy, Antoine-Franqois. The Philosophy of Chemistry. Printed for J. Johnson, London. 1795. 

While the history of the discovery and the separation of the rare earths is well documented, the story of the accommodation of the rare earths in the periodic table is less well known. Part of the story can be found in the famous book on the periodic system of van Spronsen (1969), but recent investigations in the field of the history and philosophy of chemistry have shed new light on the early episodes of the development of the periodic system after 1869. Moreover, the accommodation of the rare earths in the periodic table is still an active research topic. In 2008 and 2009, there was a debate in the Journal of Chemical Education on the position of the lanthanides and actinides in the periodic table (Clark and White, 2008 Lavelle, 2008a,b, 2009 Stewart, 2008 Jensen, 2008b, 2009 Clark, 2008 Scerri, 2009a Laing, 2009). 

---