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Tools and Modes of Representation in the Laboratory Sciences

  • Book
  • © 2001

Overview

Editors:
  1. Ursula Klein

    1. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 222)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Chemical Atomism and the Evolution of Chemical Theory in the Nineteenth Century

    • Alan J. Rocke
    Pages 1-11

  3. The Creative Power of Paper Tools in Early Nineteenth-Century Chemistry

    • Ursula Klein
    Pages 13-34

  4. An Early History of Alexander Crum Brown’s Graphical Formulas

    • Christopher Ritter
    Pages 35-46

  5. Conventionalities in Formula Writing

    • Pierre Laszlo
    Pages 47-60

  6. Paper Tools and Fictional Worlds: Prediction, Synthesis and Auxiliary Hypotheses in Chemistry

    • Peter J. Ramberg
    Pages 61-78

  7. Aspects of Paper Tools in the Industrial-Academic Context: Constitutions and Structures of Aniline Dyes, 1860–1880

    • Carsten Reinhardt, Anthony S. Travis
    Pages 79-94

  8. Molecular Models and the Articulation of Structural Constraints in Chemistry

    • Eric Francoeur
    Pages 95-115

  9. Paper Tools and Molecular Architecture in the Chemistry of Linus Pauling

    • Mary Jo Nye
    Pages 117-132

  10. Graphic Representations of the Periodic System of Chemical Elements

    • Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
    Pages 133-161

  11. The Periodic Table: The Ultimate Paper Tool in Chemistry

    • Eric Scerri
    Pages 163-177

  12. A Principle Written in Diagrams: The Aufbau Principle for Molecules and Its Visual Representations, 1927–1932

    • Buhm Soon Park, DeWitt Stetten Jr.
    Pages 179-198

  13. Fedoroff’s Translation of Mcclintock: The Uses of Chemistry in the Reorganization of Genetics

    • Emily Grosholz
    Pages 199-219

  14. Mathematics, Representation and Molecular Structure

    • Robin Findlay Hendry
    Pages 221-236

  15. Affinity, Additivity and the Reification of the Bond

    • Stephen J. Weininger
    Pages 237-251

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 253-264
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Keywords

About this book

constitutive of reference in laboratory sciences as cultural sign systems and their manipulation and superposition, collectively shared classifications and associated conceptual frameworks,· and various fonns of collective action and social institutions. This raises the question of how much modes of representation, and specific types of sign systems mobilized to construct them, contribute to reference. Semioticians have argued that sign systems are not merely passive media for expressing preconceived ideas but actively contribute to meaning. Sign systems are culturally loaded with meaning stemming from previous practical applications and social traditions of applications. In new local contexts of application they not only transfer stabilized meaning but also can be used as active resources to add new significance and modify previous meaning. This view is supported by several analyses presented in this volume. Sign systems can be implemented like tools that are manipulated and superposed with other types of signs to forge new representations. The mode of representation, made possible by applying and manipulating specific types of representational tools, such as diagrammatic rather than mathematical representations, or Berzelian fonnulas rather than verbal language, contributes to meaning and forges fine-grained differentiations between scientists' concepts. Taken together, the essays contained in this volume give us a multifaceted picture of the broad variety of modes of representation in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century laboratory sciences, of the way scientists juxtaposed and integrated various representations, and of their pragmatic use as tools in scientific and industrial practice.

Reviews

`I can recommend this book to those chemists who would like to catch up on what scholarship has transpired among historians and philosophers of science these past 20-30 years.'
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, 28:2 (2003)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

    Ursula Klein

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