The structure of chemistry in relation to the philosophy of science

Hyle

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 103-121

  Caldin, Edward F ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33748273385     PISSN: 14335158     EISSN: 14335158     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (61)

1. E.F. Caldin, The Power and Limits of Science, London, 1949, chs. 2 and 3.
2. I. Freund, The Study of Chemical Composition, Cambridge, 1904.
3. See F. Sherwood Taylor, A History of Industrial Chemistry, London, 1957, pt. 1;
4. Partington, A Short History of Chemistry, London, 1948, pp. 153 ff.;
5. R. Hoykaas, in Centaurus, 5 (1948), pp. 307-22.
6. Freund, Study of Chemical Composition. In recent years many examples of non-stoichiometric compounds have been discovered, in which the composition is variable although the binding is 'chemical'. Iron oxide is one common example. But since the properties of such substances can be related to the composition, they do not seem to be in principle any more anomalous than solutions or alloys. For a survey see
7. Emeleus and Anderson, Modern Aspects of Inorganic Chemistry, London, 1952, ch. 13; or
8. R.M. Barrer, "Quelques problèmes de la chimie minérale", Tenth Solvay Conference Proceedings, 1956, pp. 21-68 (in English).
9. (a) Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry, tr. Kerr, Edinburgh, 1790;
10. (b) J.C. Gregory, Combustion from Heracleitos to Lavoisier, London, 1931.
11. (a) Dalton, A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Manchester, 1808-27; extracts in (b) Alembic Club Reprints, no. 2 (Edinburgh, 1899) and
12. Leicester and Klickstein, A Source Book on Chemistry, New York, 1952, pp. 208-20.
13. For the origins of the theory of Dalton's physical work on mixed gases, see (d) Roscoe and Harden, A New View of Daltons's Atomic Theory, London, 1896, or
14. L.K. Nash in Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science, Cambridge, Mass., 1957, p. 108.
15. For a general survey of atomic theory see (e) J.C. Gregory, A Short History of Atomism, London, 1931.
16. Freund, Study of Chemical Composition.
17. Cf. Leicester and Klickstein, Source Book, pp. 259 ff., and
18. 2, seemed unsatisfactory.
19. Recorded in N.V. Sidgwick's Electronic Theory of Valence, Oxford, 1927.
20. See for example Coulson, Valence, Oxford, 1952.
21. Gregory, Short History.
22. Farrer and Farrer, in Proc. Chem. Soc., 1959, p. 285;
23. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, London, 1958, pp. 155-6.
24. The principle of the conservation of energy was stated by Helmholtz in 1847, and soon after by Clausius (1850) and by Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, who also stated the second law of thermodynamics (1851). (For extracts, see Magie, Source-Book in Physics, New York, 1935.) The essential equations are that which defines the energy change in a closed system as Δ E = q-w, where w is the work done by the system and q is the heat absorbed; and that which defines the entropy change as δS = δ q/T, where T is the absolute temperature, and the change must be carried out reversibly, as explained in textbooks of thermodynamics.
25. The quantitative measure of heat can be stated in terms of work, and so can that of temperature; see, for example, Zemansky, Heat and Thermodynamics, New York, 1943. Quantities of work are related ultimately to centimetres, grams and seconds.
26. Strictly speaking, the fundamental concepts used in this field are (a) energy (translational, rotational, vibrational, or electronic) and (b) the 'number of complexions' of a system, which is related to its entropy. Both depend on the mass and the structure of the molecule. Cf. R.C. Tolman, Principles of Statistical Mechanics, Oxford, 1938;
27. R.A. Fowler and E.A. Guggenheim, Statistical Thermodynamics, Cambridge, 1939.
28. Coulson, Valence.
29. The history of the emergence of the idea of correlation is too big a subject even to summarize here. The notion becomes explicit in the thirteenth century (see Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origin of Experimental Science, Oxford, 1953).
30. This is the classical way in which logicians have dealt with the matter, from Grosseteste and Roger Bacon (Crombie, Grosseteste),
31. through Francis Bacon's Novum Organum
32. and John Stuart Mill's System of Logic (1843)
33. to Keynes's Treatise on Probability (1920), with its stress on increasing the negative analogy. The effect of diversifying the circumstances is to show up any unexpected relevant factors.
34. For an excellent statement of it, see W.C. Kneale, Probability and Induction, Oxford, 1949, pts. 1 and 2.
35. I owe this way of putting the problem to I.M. Bochenski, O.P.
36. Kneale, Probability and Induction, pts. 3 and 4.
37. Cf. M.C. D'Arcy, The Nature of Belief, London, 1934.
38. Cf. Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 1 (1950), p. 196.
39. P. Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, trans. P.P. Wiener, Princeton, 1954, p. 19 (translation from the second French edition, 1914).
40. Mr. Kneale, in bringing out this point, calls them "transcendent hypotheses" (Probability and Induction, pp. 93 ff.).
41. Cavendish, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 74 (1784), p. 119;
42. Alembic Club Reprints, no. 3 (1893); Leicester and Klickstein, Source Book, pp. 152 and 153.
43. Dalton, New System, pt. 2 (1810), pp. 489-90 and 552. Whether chlorine or 'muriatic acid' (hydrogen chloride) was an element was also in debate.
44. K.R. Popper, "Three Views of Human Knowledge", in Contemporary British Philosophy, ed. H.D. Lewis, London, 1956.
45. P.W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, New York, 1927;
46. The Nature of Physical Theory, New York, 1950;
47. Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 1 (1951) p. 258.
48. H. Dingle, in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 1 (1950) p. 5.
49. E.g., R.B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation, Cambridge, 1953.
50. N.R. Campbell, What Is Science?, London, 1921, ch. 5.
51. Coulson, Valence.
52. Cf. S. Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, London, 1933, p. 406.
53. "Three Views of Human Knowledge". See G. Buchdahl, in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 10 (1959), p. 120.
54. E.T. Whittaker, The Beginning and End of the World (Riddell Lectures), Oxford, 1943.
55. M. Hesse, in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 2 (1952), p. 287;
56. M. Hesse, in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 4 (1953), p. 198;
57. Science and the Human Imagination, London, 1954, ch. 8. Dr. Hesse suggests that the (rather different) scholastic concept of analogy is also relevant here, in that mathematical structure cannot be predicated univocally of natural phenomena.
58. K.R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London, 1959;
59. J.O. Wisdom, Foundations of Inference in Natural Science, London, 1952, ch. 6; see also note.
60. The following argument is given more fully in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 10 (1959), p. 209.
61. P. Alexander, "Theory-Construction and Theory-Testing", in Brit. Jour. Phil. Sci., 9 (1958), p. 29.