Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Stepping back from details such as this, Nye
s narrative of the positive role
metaphor plays in chemistry is generally on target:
The role of metaphor in defining a scientific object and suggesting a method of investiga-
tion is demonstrated in the history of the chemical discipline, both in the development of
conventional
definitions
of the causes of chemical effects and in the working out of a
system
, which, by describing substances in the language of natural history, encouraged
chemists to think about
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these objects along genealogical and morphological
lines.
(Nye
1994
, 78; italics original)
The gain of epistemic access through metaphor is gradual. It occurs as a
dialectical process that begins with epistemic commitment to a conceptual meta-
phor, which inevitably means commitment to some level of conceptual error. In the
course of applying the metaphor in model-building (e.g. Harr´ and Martin
1982
),
we observe an alternating series of reifications and retreats from reification. In the
centuries-long transition from chemical affinities to thermodynamics, we can trace
the career of the mythical idea of nature as organism, to the metaphorical idea of
“like attracts like” (which shaped sympathetic magic and alchemical thinking in
pre-modern Europe), to eighteenth century affinity tables, and finally to the gradual
refinement of the idea of energy and energetic relationships among chemical
compounds in various reaction environments. Such adjustments are made in the
context of chemical practice: the more or less coordinated but always
interdependent and mutual refinement of concepts, instruments, experimental
design and observational targets. In this respect, contemporary studies of “science
in practice” bear similarities with science education studies.
9.4 Metaphor in a Solid State Physics Lab
In this section, we focus on the uses of metaphor in a contemporary research lab.
Heather Graves spent 7 months studying the rhetoric of inquiry in a solid state
physics lab with a seasoned researcher and his graduate students. She focused much
of her time on research about amorphous semiconductors, specifically, persistent
photoconductivity. What Graves learned about the function of metaphor in this
context can be readily transferred to our study of chemistry.
Rhetoric In
(
to
)
Science
:
Style as Invention in Inquiry
(Graves
2005
), argues that
since the time of Robert Boyle, and culminating in the work of Joseph Priestly,
science has appropriated the rhetoric of invention theory into scientific method.
One of the founders of experimental method, Boyle considered it important to
communicate what and how he thought about his experiments, taking pains to
recreate his thinking in the mind of his reader (recall Whitehead
s characterization
of speculative philosophers, in Sect.
9.1
, above). He made this an explicit goal of
his style of writing. Both he and Priestly held metaphor and analogy to be far
more than merely decorative or persuasive: both saw metaphor as a means of
“meditating” and “reflecting” upon ideas. Both considered metaphor as a chief
means of associating and extending ideas by “transferring similarities” from one
domain to another. This transference is explicitly discussed by Priestly in both his
scientific and religious writings (Graves
2005
, 75).
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