Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
more relation with nitrous acid than mercury, it unites it and precipitates mercury. If one
decants it the precipitated mercury remains on one side and on the other side a lead
dissolution in nitrous acid; if one adds a copper blade to this dissolution, copper has
more relation with nitrous acid and unites to it, lead will be precipitated too and there
remains a copper dissolution in nitrous acid; if one adds iron copper is precipitated, if one
separates as must always be done, one will have the iron dissolution. (Lehman
2010
, p. 21)
At this period, the word chemical “operation” was used to mean what we
currently call a chemical “reaction” (Holmes
1996
). Analogy was the main guide
followed by chemists in order to construe networks of independencies by means of
chemical operations. According to George Urbain:
[e]ach body being a collection of properties, the reasoning by means of analogy implies that
those properties are not independent from one another. If one aims at facing the problem of
analogy from a chemical standpoint, she must start querying under what limits those
properties are interdependent (cited in Bensaude-Vincent
2008
, p. 244, our translation).
Relations allow chemists to define chemical entities and properties, while
operations allow them to obtain pure chemical bodies. Those bodies then enter
into new reactions and result in new compounds that, once purified, allow chemists
to widen and deepen their classification by analogy. The process is open-ended and
depends on the modes of access which stabilize a certain group of relations. In the
context of scientific practices,
relata
do not exist prior to relations, and relations are
not achievable without purified chemical bodies.
Relata
and relations
depend on
one another
within an
ordered and evolving network
(Llored and Bitbol
2013
).
Let us draw our first conclusion:
The meaning of the ceteris paribus clause in
chemistry should be understood within a philosophical framework in which both
relation and relata have a role to play
(Requisite 1).
14.2.2 Constituting Chemical Bodies: The Role
of the Modes of Access
Emphasizing the constitutive role of operations on the definition of chemical
bodies, Ursula Klein says:
[t]he example of early nineteenth-century organic chemistry demonstrates that chemists
'
new definition and identification of organic substances was entwined with new ways of
material production and individuation of these things. The nineteenth-century culture of
organic chemistry material production and individuation, and the instruments, skills and
connoisseurship involved in these activities, were as much a part of the constitution of the
objects of inquiries as theories, beliefs, social interests, and power. (Klein
2008
, p. 42)
I consider experimental production and individ-
uation of objects to be part of their “constitution”.
In a footnote (p. 42): she adds
'
'
The material production and individuation of bodies has enormously expanded
in current nanochemistry, solid-state chemistry, and materials science. New instru-
mentation and chemical devices enable chemists to explore temporal and spatial
