Status of chemistry

Karl Hufbauer, The Formation of the German Chemical Community, 17201795 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London University of California Press, 1982). And Christoph Meinel, "Zur Socialgeschichte des chemischen Hochschulfaches im 18 Jahrhundert," Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 10 (1987) 147168 and "Theory of Practice The Eighteenth-Century Debate on the Scientific Status of Chemistry," Ambix 30 (1983) 121132. 

Dumas was to be the pivotal figure in shifting the study of causes in chemistry from atoms and forces to structure and function. This shift away from force as causal agent undermined the "philosophical" or "positive" status of chemistry, which some chemical philosophers already feared was becoming increasingly "unphilosophical" on other grounds, namely, that chemistry was becoming a science of too many conventions. 

Meinel, Christoph. "Theory or Practice The Eighteenth-Century Debate on the Scientific Status of Chemistry." Ambix 30 (1983) 121132. 

The story in this book traces the study of the qualities and transformations of different kinds of matter from alchemical beginnings to the present. It follows a small number of themes theories about the elements, the need to classify elements and compounds, the status of chemistry as a science, and the contributions of practice to theory. It explores these themes by concentrating on the contributions of some of the most influential and innovative practitioners of the science. 

Thakur, R.S., Puri, H.S. and Hussain, A. (1989) Current Status of Chemistry and Pharmacology Major Medicinal Plants of India. Vedams Books, New Delhi. 

Of course, although my focus here has been on the expunging of the alchemical as a means by which the status of chemistry was elevated in this period, I do not intend to imply that this was the sole means. Contributors to this volume explicitly address other ways in which the discipline s status was enhanced throughout the eighteenth century - partly by entering university curricula, partly by public reeducation, and by acquiring ever-expanding utility and productivity for a host of applications. 

Powers underscores such a transfer but develops a context for it in the problematic status of chemistry at Leiden University where Boerhaave taught. Chemistry as a pedagogical subject had entered European medical faculties in the seventeenth century but existed in an uneasy, subordinate position. At least, this seems to be how Boerhaave perceived the situation at Leiden ca. 1700. The prevalent ideology in the Leiden medical faculty was Hippocratic, and Powers argues that Boerhaave s appropriation of a Hippocratic stance for chemistry was motivated by his desire to preserve chemistry and enhance its status as part of medical teaching. Powers... 

It is unfortunate that no personal record has survived of Stahl s change of attitude. Was Stahl, like the other early eighteenth-century European leaders so far discussed, attempting to remediate a perceived vulnerability in the status of chemistry Was he, perhaps, even influenced by the denigration of alchemy taking place among some... 

Principe, in his opening essay to this volume, suggests something similar to my speculation when he notes that the denigration of alchemy was particularly strong in the French and British national scientific societies concerned about their corporate image, and thus the status of chemistry and chemists. ... 

Chemistry of a sort did come to the university at Jena. Both Brendel and his son (also called Zacharias, 1592-1638) taught how to prepare chemical medicines there, and they were followed in that sort of teaching by Werner Rolfinck (1599-1673), who acquired the more specific title of director of chemical exercises. But limiting instruction in chemistry to medicine was not really what Libavius had in mind. And while it is true that, as the historian of chemistry Maurice Crosland and others have argued, the real status of chemistry as an independent discipline within the university had to wait... 

Delftse Universitaire Pens, 1993). Christoph Meinel, Theory or practice The eighteenth-century debate on the scientific status of chemistry, Ambix, 20 (1983), 121-133. 

The second problem is that not all chemical properties are defined functionally. What does this situation teU us with respect to the nature of chemistry as a science, and its autonomy from physics In my view, this situation refiects the status of chemistry as the first of the special sciences. Some chemical properties (Uke the property of being an alcohol) can be reductively identified with microphysical... 

By now there is an extensive literature discussing the possible causes of the neglect of chemistry in the philosophy of science and there may be some truth in every suggestion made. Here we list some of the factors that may have played a role, most of which can be seen as stage-set by Kant s pronoimcements on the status of chemistry. First of all, prior to 1960 philosophy of science was almost exclusively interested in theoretical science. That chemistry is not theoretical in the sense of theoretical physics tends to be supported by chemists themselves who, according to the chemist Polanyi [1958, 156], have always been wary of theoretical speculation unsupported by detailed experimental observations. This is a recm-rent theme in the public lectures of well-known chemists. 

I suspect that the status of chemistry as the middle science makes it especially fertile ground for the development of hybrid representation schemes that function explicitly as inferential tools. Consider, for example, chemical equations, Lewis structures, the periodic table, and reaction mechanism diagrams. In each case there is a rich story of novel representation in the face of complexity. We would do well to consider in a more systematic manner how such representation schemes can be robust inferential tools, how issues of representation are related to explanatory power, and how recognition of amalgamated concepts might influence our accounts of reduction and intertheoretic relations more generally. 

This image problem is not confined to the chemical industry, however, but also affects the academic discipline of chemistry. The subaltern status of chemistry is as old as the discipline itself Even as it first established itself as an independent scientific discipline in the eighteenth century, it was regarded as being intellectually inferior to mathematics and physics. ... 

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