Tools and Modes of Representation in the Laboratory Sciences
Editors: Klein, U. (Ed.)
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- About this book
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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
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`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)
- Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Chemical Atomism and the Evolution of Chemical Theory in the Nineteenth Century
Pages 1-11
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The Creative Power of Paper Tools in Early Nineteenth-Century Chemistry
Pages 13-34
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An Early History of Alexander Crum Brown’s Graphical Formulas
Pages 35-46
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Conventionalities in Formula Writing
Pages 47-60
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Paper Tools and Fictional Worlds: Prediction, Synthesis and Auxiliary Hypotheses in Chemistry
Pages 61-78
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Tools and Modes of Representation in the Laboratory Sciences
- Editors
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- U. Klein
- Series Title
- Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
- Series Volume
- 222
- Copyright
- 2001
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
- eBook ISBN
- 978-94-015-9737-1
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-94-015-9737-1
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-4020-0100-0
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-90-481-5859-1
- Series ISSN
- 0068-0346
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XVI, 264
- Topics
