Chemical analysis and the domains of reality: Wilhelm Homberg's Essais de chimie, 1702–1709

Kim, Mi Gyung

doi:10.1016/s0039-3681(99)00033-3

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Homberg undertook the problem of chemical composition at the beginning of the eighteenth century, trying to bridge the gap between the analytic ideal of chemical elements and the practice of analytic chemistry. Although he failed in his endeavor, his effort toward this unattainable goal stabilized the material composition of bodies as a main theory domain of chemistry more than a half century before the onset of the Chemical Revolution (Kim 2000). By providing a materialistic language for the rapidly evolving practice of analytic chemistry, the corpuscular philosophy helped French chemists carve out a space of chemical theory sufficiently different from the earlier, phantom space of chemical philosophy.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the first decade of the eighteenth century, Homberg sought to bridge the gap between the analytic ideal of chemical principles and the actual products of chemical analysis with a new, powerful furnace -the burning glass. Although his efforts ultimately failed to realize the Boylean agenda of materializing chemists' principles, he stabilized in the process the theory domain of chemical composition (Kim 2000). After the deaths of Nicolas Lemery and Homberg, both in 1715, the speculative corpuscular paradigm they espoused fell into decline.…”

Section: The Analytic Idealmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I have argued elsewhere that it did not. By the turn of the eighteenth century, Parisian elite chemists developed an elaborate corpuscular paradigm which stabilized the theory domain of chemical composition more than a half-century before the onset of the Chemical Revolution (Kim 2000). In this paper, therefore, I will place Boyle's critique of chemists' elements and principles in the context of French didactic tradition and argue that it served as an important negative heuristic in re-shaping the theoretical agenda of French chemistry.…”

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The Analytic Ideal of Chemical Elements: Robert Boyle and the French Didactic Tradition of Chemistry

Kim

2001

Sci Context

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ArgumentHistorians have accorded a privileged status to the analytic ideal of elements as a distinctive marker of “modern” chemistry. Boyle’s and Lavoisier’s have been used to characterize their modernity, which has in turn justified their status as the founding fathers of modern chemistry. It has been difficult, however, to establish a viable connection between these two fathers or the genealogy of their definitions. I argue in this paper that French didactic tradition gave rise to the definition Boyle stated in the Sceptical Chymist, or the analytic/philosophical ideal of elements. He did not endorse the definition he gave, but criticized its lack of analytic rigor and philosophical sophistication. His critique served as a negative heuristic, leading to Nicolas Lemery’s analytic ideal of “chemical principles” as distinct from “natural principles.” Lemery’s definition survived in French didactic tradition, as is evidenced in Macquer’s and Guyton’s textbooks which provided direct precedents for Lavoisier’s analytic ideal of “elements or principles.”

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Analytic Idealmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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The Analytic Ideal of Chemical Elements: Robert Boyle and the French Didactic Tradition of Chemistry

Kim

2001

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“…Homberg proved that the study of salts involved the interchanging nature of the bodies which corresponded to distinguishable categories. So, he constitutes a experimental field which could replace the principles (Kim 2000). Thus, he established the material composition of bodies as a main theoretical and experimental sector of chemistry, more than half a century before the Chemical Revolution, confirming the chemical practice of analysis and composition that highlighted the corpuscular theory.…”

Section: Before the Chemical Revolution In Europementioning

confidence: 92%

The “System of Chymists” and the “Newtonian dream” in Greek-speaking Communities in the 17th–18th Centuries

Bokaris

Koutalis

2006

Sci & Educ

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“…Chemists' use of solution methods 9 For the layering technique, see Kim (1992Kim ( , 2000. 10 Spirits were the volatile products of distillation that rose up during the process and were collected after cooling.…”

Section: Natural Versus Chemical Ontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

From phlogiston to caloric: chemical ontologies

Kim

2011

Found Chem

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The 'triumph of the anti-phlogistians' is a familiar story to the historians and philosophers of science who characterize the Chemical Revolution as a broad conceptual shift. The apparent ''incommensurability'' of the paradigms across the revolutionary divide has caused much anxiety. Chemists could identify phlogiston and oxygen, however, only with different sets of instrumental practices, theoretical schemes, and philosophical commitments. In addition, the substantive counterpart to phlogiston in the new chemistry was not oxygen, but caloric. By focusing on the changing visions of chemical body across the revolutionary divide with a more sensitive probe into the historical actors' material manipulations and linguistic usage, we can historicize their laboratory realities and philosophical agenda. An archeology of chemical bodies that configures the fragile stability of the material worlds chemists created in succession promises a philosophical horizon that would recognize our hybrid (natural-artificial) environment as an evolving investigative object of science.Keywords Phlogiston Á Caloric Á Chemical ontologies Á Incommensurability Á Lavoisier Á Guyton de MorveauThe Chemical Revolution has enjoyed a privileged status in the historiography of the European sciences. Building on the nineteenth-century cult of Lavoisier (Kim 2005), historians scrutinized his self-conscious reformulation of chemical theory already in the 1930s, well before the history of science became established as a professional discipline. In these stories that amplified the nineteenth-century myth of Lavoisier's revolutionary ideas and methods, phlogiston was a 'hypothetical' substance that eluded detection, yet was held responsible for several genres of chemical actions such as combustion, calcination, and acidification. The anomaly in the weight consideration-that the release of phlogiston from a substance (e.g. lead) produced a heavier substance (e.g. lead oxide)-supposedly revealed the absurdity of the phlogiston theory ''based on an unsound and insecure

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Chemical analysis and the domains of reality: Wilhelm Homberg's Essais de chimie, 1702–1709

Cited by 3 publications

References 37 publications

The Analytic Ideal of Chemical Elements: Robert Boyle and the French Didactic Tradition of Chemistry

The Analytic Ideal of Chemical Elements: Robert Boyle and the French Didactic Tradition of Chemistry

The “System of Chymists” and the “Newtonian dream” in Greek-speaking Communities in the 17th–18th Centuries

From phlogiston to caloric: chemical ontologies

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