Abstract
Immanuel Kant has built up a dualistic epistemology that seems to fit to the peculiarities of chemistry quite well. Friedrich Paneth used Kant’s concept and characterised simple and basic substances which refer to the empirical and to the transcendental world, respectively. This paper takes account of the Kantian influences in Paneth’s philosophy of chemistry, and discusses pertinent topics, like observables, atomism and realism.
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Notes
On page 175 of the English translation of the Traité élémentaire de Chimie (1789), Lavoisier gives his definition of the concept as the legend of a table: “Simple substances belonging to all the kingdoms of nature, which may be considered as the elements of bodies.”.
Although the word Element (from the Latin elementum) is used in the German language, too, Paneth did not use it. He presumably preferred Grundstoff because it has a much more neutral connotation than the historically biased Element. The alternative Urstoff is normally used in poetical surroundings and to some extend old-fashioned. When discussing cosmological questions, German-speaking physicists use Urmaterie rather than Urstoff (which by the way is absolutely correct as to the early universe).
A more detailed discussion of the Kantian background and von Hartmann’s interpretation can be found in the author’s Das Kantsche Echo in Paneths Philosophie der Chemie, Kant-Studien, forthcoming.
However, this position could be interpreted to be considerably more realistic than the common opinion claims, as Michael Friedman (1992) has shown.
As Ursula Klein has convincingly shown (in particular for 18th and 19th century organic chemistry) already the concept of substance underlies historical changes in a more than trivial sense. She differentiates her approach from the entity realism of Ian Hacking: “I consider experimental production and individuation of objects to be part of their “constitution”, and my concept of “historical ontology” differs in this respect from Hacking’s.” (Klein 2008, p. 42).
Note that this thesis is circular: Composed substances must contain parts by definition.
Kant by the way was not fond of the concept of atomism.
In this footnote he said: “I wish to emphasise particularly that, like Hartmann, I am using the word ‘transcendental’ in its epistemological sense only, i.e. meaning ‘beyond the sphere of consciousness’”.
Henry Le Chatelier (1850 – 1936), a French application-oriented chemist with strong affinities to chemical thermodynamics, published the now so-called Le Chatelier principle in 1887 (which originated from van’t Hoff, see Laidler 2001). The work Paneth was referring to is Le Chatelier 1913 in which the author neglected “hypotheses about the constitution of matter” and claimed: “It is merely a question which is decided not by reasons but by inclination” (Le Chatelier 1913, p. XIV).
In his book on the Periodic Table, Scerri assigns this “intermediate position” to Mendeleev (Scerri 2007, p. 120). In a more recent contribution, he uses the expression “dual sense” which appears to be much more suitable (Scerri 2009).
Joachim Schummer critizes the “ontological doubling of elements” suggested by Paneth and claims the physicalistic epistemological models to be unsuitable for chemistry (Schummer 1996, pp. 234–235). This serious attack and Schummer’s own position will be discussed elsewhere.
In his book on “Philosophical Instruments”, Daniel Rothbart puts it quite similar reviewing Hacking: “Between the proper use of the term ‘electron’ and the efficient use of electrons is a complex network of mediating agents, both human and nonhuman. Theories come and go, but the causal properties of certain entities deployed for purposes of research remain.” (Rothbart 2007, p.4). Rothbart claims that Hacking, in his later writings, shifted his view to a culturalist or antirealist position which he seems not willing to subscribe to.
In contrast to the standpoint advocated here Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent points out that Hacking’s position is close to that of chemists, and she calls the later “operational realism” (Bensaude-Vincent et al. 2008, p. 52).
Shifting the border between the transcendental and the empirical realm is closely related to the question whether or not one can draw the distinction between observables and unobservables. A recent attempt to answer this question positively from the point of view of constructive empirism is Muller and van Fraassen 2008.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the criticism and comments of two anonymous referees and also—particularly—Eric Scerri, who considerably helped to clarify his argumentation and polish his style. He is also grateful for all comments out of the ISPC group during the paper sessions of the San Francisco Symposium 2007, which was brilliantly organized and hosted by Tami Spector at the University of San Francisco. In particular he thanks Joseph Earley, Rom Harré, and Eric Scerri. The participation of the symposium was possible due to a travel grant from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), Belgium. Referring to research stays at the Institute of Philosophy of the KUL in 2006 and 2007, during which the main parts of the present contribution came into being cordially thanks go to Jaap van Brakel.
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Ruthenberg, K. Paneth, Kant, and the philosophy of chemistry. Found Chem 11, 79–91 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-009-9064-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-009-9064-y