Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field

Description

Philosophical Chemistry furthers Manuel DeLanda's revolutionary intervention in the philosophy of science and science studies. Against a monadic and totalizing understanding of science, DeLanda's historicizing investigation traces the centrality of divergence, specialization and hybridization through the fields and subfields of chemistry. The strategy followed uses a series of chemical textbooks, separated from each other by fifty year periods (1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900), to follow the historical formation of consensus practices. The three chapters deal with one subfield of chemistry in the century in which it was developed: eighteenth-century inorganic chemistry, nineteenth-century organic chemistry, and nineteenth-century physical chemistry. This book creates a model of a scientific field capable of accommodating the variation and differentiation evident in the history of scientific practice. DeLanda proposes a model that is made of three components: a domain of phenomena, a community of practitioners, and a set of instruments and techniques connecting the community to the domain. Philosophical Chemistry will be essential reading for those engaged in emergent, radical and contemporary strands of thought in the philosophy of science and for those scholars and students who strive to practice a productive dialogue between the two disciplines.

Manuel DeLanda is a distinguished writer, artist and philosopher. He began his career in experimental film, later becoming a computer artist and programmer. He is now Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

[This] book presents a problem-focused intellectual history of chemistry ... with extraordinary conceptual clarity. * International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry * Even as a long-time reader of DeLanda's work, I'm struck by the richness and depth of his Philosophical Chemistry. His characteristic clarity and rigor are there, as he relentlessly and patiently traces the shifting population of concepts, methods, and phenomena of chemistry's history. In showing the progressive determinations of the virtual idea of chemistry in its successive individuations across its succeeding generations, DeLanda has given us nothing less than a Deleuzean take on Foucault's Archeology of Knowledge. * John Protevi, Phyllis M Taylor Professor of French Studies and Professor of Philosophy, Louisiana State University, USA * For more than two decades, Manuel DeLanda has been one of the most challenging philosophers in our midst: a self-taught lone wolf whose sphere of influence ranges from military academies to architecture schools to opium dens. In this new book, he gives us a guided tour through more than two hundred years of the history of chemistry, leading us to a new philosophy of science that contests the unspoken Kuhnian standpoint of most continentally trained philosophers. * Graham Harman, Distinguished University Professor, American University in Cairo * This book by a distinguished philosopher is an attempt to give a philosophical underpinning to chemistry. In four short but dense chapters, each drawing on a textbook of a given period, DeLanda (European Graduate School, Switzerland) discusses his theories of the philosophy of chemistry with respect to 18th-century inorganic chemistry, 19th-century organic chemistry, 19th-century physical chemistry, and what he terms 'social chemistry.' The overall intent is to present an intellectual history of chemistry during the periods described. The author's command of the field is impressive, though there are occasional lapses in chemical understanding. The text covers only 158 pages, and there are over 60 pages of references, many with extensive comments. There are separate author and subject indexes, but no illustrations. A book for serious philosophers and historians of science, not general readers. Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers/faculty and professionals/practitioners. -- H. Goldwhite, California State University, Los Angeles * CHOICE *