Philosophy of Chemistry, Misc

Summary As soon as he was appointed Minister of Public Instruction in 1863, Victor Duruy embarked on a major reform of French education. One of his most important initiatives was the creation of a new secondary curriculum designed to prepare for careers in industry, trade, and agriculture. Edme Fremy, professor at the Muséum d'histoire naturelle, took the opportunity of proposing a course of instruction in practical chemistry that would be offered at the Muséum for young men intending to work in (...) industry. Duruy approved the proposal, and funds were immediately made available. In contrast, Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, who led an internationally recognized research laboratory in organic chemistry in the Paris Faculty of Medicine, had difficulty in securing either administrative recognition or financial support. This article draws on the correspondence that Fremy and Wurtz exchanged with Duruy and senior officials in the Ministry between 1863 and 1869 to bring out the significance of the divergent ministerial responses to the two laboratories. (shrink)

Along with exploring some of the necessary conditions for the chemistry of our world given what we know about quantum mechanics, I will also discuss a different reductionist challenge than is usually considered in debates on the relationship of chemistry to physics. Contrary to popular belief, classical physics does not have a reductive relationship to quantum mechanics and some of the reasons why reduction fails between classical and quantum physics are the same as for why reduction fails between chemistry and (...) quantum physics. However, a neoreductionist can accept that classical physics has some amount of autonomy from quantum mechanics, but still try to maintain that classical+quantum physics taken as a whole reduces chemistry to physics. I will explore some of the obstacles lying in the neoreductionist’s path with respect to quantum chemistry and thereby hope to shed more light on the conditions necessary for the chemistry of our world. (shrink)

If nature is by definition the object of the natural sciences, then the dichotomy ‘natural’ versus ‘chemical’, held by both chemists and nonchemists, suggests an idiosyncrasy of chemistry. The first part of the paper presents a selective historical analysis of the main notions of nature in chemistry, as developed in early Christian views of chemical crafts, alchemy, iatrochemistry, mechanical philosophy, organic chemistry, and contemporary drug research. I argue that the dichotomy as well as quasi-moral judgments of chemistry have been based (...) on static and teleological notions of nature throughout history and that chemists, unlike physicists, have neglected the dynamic notion of nature. The second part provides a philosophical criticism of the former notions and argues for the latter as well as for an explicit discourse about values in chemistry.Author Keywords: History and philosophy of chemistry; Notion of nature; Alchemy; Mechanical philosophy; Synthetic organic chemistry; Contemporary drug research. (shrink)

How Alchemy WorksThe discourse of alchemy is sturdy. It is certifiably old, having been practiced at the beginning of the Common Era, and claimed to be as old as human history -- Adam is the author, says Ben Jonson's Epicure Mammon, of the treatise in his possession. Alchemical treatises share a few basic ideas: that alchemy speeds up processes already at work in Nature, that gold represents the perfect balance between the elements of earth, water, air, and fire toward which (...) Nature is heading, and that alchemy could hurry the lower metals toward gold through "projections" involving mercury, sulfur, and furnaces. Although never fully included among the medieval and early modern academic sciences and at many times prohibited, alchemy nonetheless attracted intelligent and learned practitioners and patrons for centuries. Because its terms were never fully stabilized and clarified, it could not exactly progress, but it could incorporate new elements and shift its emphases over time. Paracelsus , for example, emphasized mining as a practical venture and made his brand of alchemy a force for empiricism, while the influence of John Dee linked the practical effects of alchemy with the spiritual realm. Opinion differs in the contemporary scientific community about the role alchemy played in bringing modern empirical science into being. Some see alchemy as an effect of the other-worldly medieval mind-set, and others argue that it broke with the Middle Ages by encouraging laboratory experimentation. William Newman takes a middle course: medieval alchemists "developed a clearly articulated philosophy of technology" in which human art is appreciated and the prestige of learning made to serve practical ends enhanced. It is not primarily, however, the work of the alchemical laboratories which interests me here, but the social and cultural work of a discourse encapsulating expansive hopes for the natural and human worlds.The aim of the whole alchemical project was the discovery of the philosopher's stone, the transforming agent that would transmute baser metals to gold and produce an elixir to cure all disease. The stone was seen as a scientific/technological artifact and a pious penetration of God's secrets, and these two faces of alchemical work coexisted through its long history with varying emphases on one or the other. An unlimited supply of gold would release the social world from poverty, and the elixir would eradicate illness. Alchemy therefore offered a utopian promise: that knowledge, some blend of technological expertise and spiritual insight, would enhance human happiness. Two of the great English comic writers, maybe the two greatest, wrote directly about alchemy. For both Geoffrey Chaucer's audience and Ben Jonson's, I will claim, alchemy was a practice familiar enough to signify a range of personal and social desires and yet sufficiently mystified to dazzle. Alchemy is both the subject and the overarching metaphor of The Canon's Yeoman's Tale and The Alchemist. In both, the tenor of that metaphor gestures toward a capitalism yet to come. Alchemy is also Karl Marx's insistent metaphor for capitalist exchange in Capital: the circulation of capital is "the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as the money crystal. Nothing is immune from this alchemy, the bones of saints cannot withstand it." The exploration of these three metaphoric logics is one subject of this essay; its other subject is the contrast between Chaucer's late medieval vantage point and the early modern perspective of Jonson. The creation of this metaphor, in each case is needed to display a "structure of feeling" not readily reducible to an institution that can be named but "a particular quality of social experience and relationship . . . which gives the sense of a generation or of a period." The late fourteenth century exhibits a different structure of feeling from that of the early seventeenth.Although there is some dispute about the extent of a scattering of capitalistic enterprises in the fourteenth century, no one would argue that such social relations were dominant in England when Chaucer wrote. Britton Harwood refers.. (shrink)

The concept of extent of reaction was discussed many times in physical chemistry journals and books. This contribution strongly suggests the use of the extent of reaction as standard basic tool in teaching stoichiometry. The same idea was suggested several times in the past without success because the concept of extent of reaction is still not presented in the first-year general chemistry textbooks. It is also remarked that the concept of extent of reaction represents a simple example of the way (...) of attaining a mathematization of chemistry, that is chemistry thought and made with the mathematical way of thinking, i.e. using variables, symbols and functions. Presenting the concept of the extent of reaction within the general chemistry curriculum will support successive physical chemistry courses, as these courses make extensive use of this powerful concept when teaching thermodynamics and kinetics of chemical reactions. (shrink)

In England, institutionalized locations for science in academe and industry sprang up at approximately the same time, that is to say, during the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War. By the latter date science was well established within most academic institutions and, more rudimentarily, in many industrial firms. Standardized forms of practice were to be found in both sectors, and there existed mechanisms for the transfer of personnel, knowledge and finance between the two. Both sites were (...) of course surrounded and sustained by a network of other institutions and practices: scientific and technical societies and journals, patent and company law, government agencies and so on. Nevertheless, during the period just identified these two developed as the key occupational sites for men trained in science. (shrink)

Jean Antoine Claude Chaptal was not only a chemical manufacturer and one of the first ‘industrial scientists’ but was also, according to his own testimony, one of the early supporters of Lavoisier's system of chemistry. It might be assumed that Chaptal's pioneering work in industrial chemistry was intimately linked with his acceptance of the oxygen system of chemistry; more specifically, that this theory served to direct and inform his applied research and contributed not a little to its success. Indeed, he (...) himself in 1790 explicitly stated this to have been the case. A close study of his work prior to 1790 fails, however, to establish the importance of such a linkage. First, his selection of research topics proves to have owed little to the ‘new chemistry’ but much to the scientific and economic milieu of his province of Languedoc and of Montpellier, its administrative seat. Second, the significance of his acceptance of the ‘new chemistry’ appears rather problematic, not the least because of the rather hazy boundaries between the phlogistic and Lavoisian theories in the 1780s. Third, it is not clear from the evidence available how the new theory helped solve the various problems of industrial chemistry he faced, or could have done so, other than to offer alternative explanations for processes with which he was already familiar and indeed had often mastered. It will be suggested that it is precisely this less dramatic role which was filled by the new chemistry: that of ‘rectifying’ his ideas by providing alternative and more satisfactory rationalizations of his experiences and experiments in the laboratory and the factory, not that of enabling him to simplify and perfect old processes nor to invent new ones. To put the point more bluntly: Chaptal's early successes and reputation in industrial chemistry were not a by-product of his allegiance to the new chemistry; rather, his growing adherence to that system was a by-product of its ability to provide satisfactory post-hoc explanations of the chemical processes and products with which he was concerned. (shrink)

Classical thermochemistry is inextricably bound up with the problem of chemical affinity. In 1851, when Julius Thomsen began his career in thermochemistry, the concept of chemical affinity had been in the centre of chemical enquiry for more than a century. In spite of many suggestions, preferably to explain affinity in terms of electrical or gravitational forces, almost nothing was known about the cause and nature of affinity. In this state of puzzling uncertainty some chemists felt it more advantageous to establish (...) an adequate experimental measure of affinity, whatever its nature was. One way of providing affinity with a quantitative description was by means of the heats evolved in chemical processes. (shrink)

Panenmentalist possibilities are individual pure possibilities existing independently of any mind, actual reality, and possible-world conception. These possibilities are a priori accessible to our intellect and imagination. In this paper, I attempt to shed some panenmentalist light on the discovery of chemical branched chain reactions and its implications on biology and cancer research. I also examine the case of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction which, at first, was believed to be impossible. Finally, I proceed to examine through a panenmentalist lens Szilard’s discovery (...) of the possibility of physical chain reactions and Mullis’s discovery of a polymerase chain reaction. All these major actual discoveries clearly depend on the discovery of the relevant panenmentalist possibilities and the ways in which they relate to one another. (shrink)

Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843) was the most prolific German philosopher of science in the nineteenth century who strived to synthesize Kant’s philosophical foundation of science and mathematics and the needs or practised science and mathematics in order to gain more comprehensive conceptual frameworks and greater methodological flexibility for those two disciplines. His original contributions anticipated later developments, to some extent, though they received comparatively little notice in the later course of the nineteenth century—a fate which partly can be explained by (...) the unfortunate development of the so-called ‘First Friesian School,’ founded by E. F. Apelt, M. J. Schleiden and O. X. Schlömilch. This situation changed temporarily when Leonard Nelson (1882–1927) arrived on the philosophical stage and founded a second, so-called, ‘New Friesian School’ in 1903. In the following two decades, Fries’ specific transformation of Kantian philosophy gained influence within the vigorous discussions about ‘new’ foundations of mathematics and, thus, also played a role within the Berlin Group surrounding Hans Reichenbach, though his work had no direct impact on the philosophy of physics being expounded therein. -/- This essay will first outline some characteristics of Fries’ development of the Kantian approach. Then it will point out the limited impact of the ‘New Friesian School’ on the Berlin Group, while highlighting some missed chances for fruitful exchange. As the originality of this school and its importance for the development of logic and philosophy of mathematics—by and large merits of its early members Walter Dubislav and Kurt Grelling —is dealt with in separate chapters of this volume, and elsewhere, this article will focus on what Fries called the ‘mathematical philosophy of nature’ (i. e. the philosophical foundations of physics). More specifically, it will show how the New Friesian School reacted to Einstein’s theories of relativity, in a way that contrasts with the approach of the Berlin Group. This discussion about relativity will also be used to reveal different understandings of the nature of ‘scientific philosophy’ in general, as well as different models of how philosophy and the empirical sciences should interact. (shrink)