Abstract
Why do some epistemic objects persist despite undergoing serious changes, while others go extinct in similar situations? Scientists have often been careless in deciding which epistemic objects to retain and which ones to eliminate; historians and philosophers of science have been on the whole much too unreflective in accepting the scientists’ decisions in this regard. Through a re-examination of the history of oxygen and phlogiston, I will illustrate the benefits to be gained from challenging and disturbing the commonly accepted continuities and discontinuities in the lives of epistemic objects. I will also outline two key consequences of such re-thinking. First, a fresh view on the (dis)continuities in key epistemic objects is apt to lead to informative revisions in recognized periods and trends in the history of science. Second, recognizing sources of continuity leads to a sympathetic view on extinct objects, which in turn problematizes the common monistic tendency in science and philosophy; this epistemological reorientation allows room for more pluralism in scientific practice itself.
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Notes
It would have been better to go with Scheele in calling the stuff “fire air”, or to follow Oersted’s example in coining a more sensible term in one’s own language.
Lavoisier does the same for hydrogen and nitrogen, too.
This makes an important contrast to the case of the term “acid” (from Arrhenius onward), which Stanford and Kitcher (2000, pp. 115–120) discuss at some length.
For a preliminary attempt, see “Acidity: The Persistence of the Everyday in the Scientific”, presentation at the joint meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association and the History of Science Society, 4 November 2010.
See Chang (2009b) for further reflections on this historiographical point.
Kuhn (1970), 157.
This quirky fact I owe to Partington and McKie (1937–1939, p. 350).
For full details on this episode, see chapter 2 of Chang (2012).
I thank Patrick Coffey for alerting me to this passage.
For details about various aspects of Dalton’s atomism, see Cardwell (1968).
For a helpful definition of monism, see Kellert et al. (2006, p. x).
For the full argument, see Chang (2012), chapter 5.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Uljana Feest and Thomas Sturm for inviting me to the workshop on historical epistemology at the Max Planck Institute where this paper was originally presented, and also for their effective guidance through the publication process. I also thank many other participants and hosts of the workshop for their helpful comments and kind encouragement, especially Philip Kitcher, Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, and Lorraine Daston.
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Chang, H. The Persistence of Epistemic Objects Through Scientific Change. Erkenn 75, 413–429 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9340-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9340-9