of stable scientific laws, concepts, and theories, which Kuhn calls a paradigm. For
instance, before the Einstein relativistic theory, the practice of science took a place
within the paradigm of the classical mechanics, i.e. within the pattern of the Newton
theory. Scientific revolution has appeared as an extension of the Cartesian space
and time to the relativistic theory that became the basis of the new paradigm. After
that, again, a history of science has continued through a period of the normal
science. Thus, by Thomas Kuhn, abandoning of the old and growth of the new
paradigm is the scientific revolution. Interestingly, the case study for the explanation of scientific revolution that Kuhn has used is the change of paradigm by which
Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794) has established basic concepts of the
modern chemistry. Such a way, in the second half of the past century, chemistry
finally comes as a part of the research in philosophy of science. In addition, in his
book Science in Action (1987), Bruno Latour has represented a list of the most
important scientists on which we can find Crick, Mendeleev, Pasteur, Einstein,
Newton and Copernic. Half of those could be considered as chemists. At the end of
Century, philosophy of chemistry has been finally organized as an egalitarian
branch of philosophy of science [20, 21]. On the Conference in Ilkley (United
Kingdom), which has been hold in 1997, the International Society for Philosophy
of Chemistry, the organization that gather scientists and philosophers dealing with
chemistry was established. In this period, two scientific journals focused on the
philosophy of chemistry have appeared, HYLE (1995) edited by Universität
Karlsruhe, and Foundations of Chemistry (1999) , which is today edited by
Springer-Verlag.
Kantian concept about the proper and improper sciences, which was based on
the degree on which it can use mathematics, undoubtedly has roots in the old
history of systematic activity in the scientific knowledge. Independently whether we
accept empiricism together with its inductive approach, or we accept
Duhem-Popperian deductivism, the cognition that on the social level is called
science origins from the senses as mediators between the mind and the outer world.
Interestingly, senses as well as scientific disciplines can also be divided in two
groups as regards the procedure by which they could be analysed. Senses of time
and space belong to the first group, similarly to the Kantian categories, and they
naturally can be associated with the quantitative way of thinking. These senses are
the grounds of sciences which use mathematics as the main methodology: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, mechanics, i.e. all that we today attribute to physics.
Second group of sense data such as heat, colour, smell, or flavour cannot be used
for the objective analysis because their nature is qualitative and there has been no
such mathematics that could be used for their rationalization. There is also a fundamental difference between the approaches in cognition which follows from these
two groups of senses. While the space and time could be measured, and from these
measurements it is possible to construct abstractions on over ever higher levels until
the formation of generalized theory, it has been not possible, at the least in the time
of protoscience, to make experiments with the phenomena such as the events
observed on the sky. On the other hand, colour, taste or smell were phenomena not
measurable at the time, but convenient for experimenting, for instance melting of
1 Chemistry and Philosophy of Science
13
instance, before the Einstein relativistic theory, the practice of science took a place
within the paradigm of the classical mechanics, i.e. within the pattern of the Newton
theory. Scientific revolution has appeared as an extension of the Cartesian space
and time to the relativistic theory that became the basis of the new paradigm. After
that, again, a history of science has continued through a period of the normal
science. Thus, by Thomas Kuhn, abandoning of the old and growth of the new
paradigm is the scientific revolution. Interestingly, the case study for the explanation of scientific revolution that Kuhn has used is the change of paradigm by which
Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794) has established basic concepts of the
modern chemistry. Such a way, in the second half of the past century, chemistry
finally comes as a part of the research in philosophy of science. In addition, in his
book Science in Action (1987), Bruno Latour has represented a list of the most
important scientists on which we can find Crick, Mendeleev, Pasteur, Einstein,
Newton and Copernic. Half of those could be considered as chemists. At the end of
Century, philosophy of chemistry has been finally organized as an egalitarian
branch of philosophy of science [20, 21]. On the Conference in Ilkley (United
Kingdom), which has been hold in 1997, the International Society for Philosophy
of Chemistry, the organization that gather scientists and philosophers dealing with
chemistry was established. In this period, two scientific journals focused on the
philosophy of chemistry have appeared, HYLE (1995) edited by Universität
Karlsruhe, and Foundations of Chemistry (1999) , which is today edited by
Springer-Verlag.
Kantian concept about the proper and improper sciences, which was based on
the degree on which it can use mathematics, undoubtedly has roots in the old
history of systematic activity in the scientific knowledge. Independently whether we
accept empiricism together with its inductive approach, or we accept
Duhem-Popperian deductivism, the cognition that on the social level is called
science origins from the senses as mediators between the mind and the outer world.
Interestingly, senses as well as scientific disciplines can also be divided in two
groups as regards the procedure by which they could be analysed. Senses of time
and space belong to the first group, similarly to the Kantian categories, and they
naturally can be associated with the quantitative way of thinking. These senses are
the grounds of sciences which use mathematics as the main methodology: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, mechanics, i.e. all that we today attribute to physics.
Second group of sense data such as heat, colour, smell, or flavour cannot be used
for the objective analysis because their nature is qualitative and there has been no
such mathematics that could be used for their rationalization. There is also a fundamental difference between the approaches in cognition which follows from these
two groups of senses. While the space and time could be measured, and from these
measurements it is possible to construct abstractions on over ever higher levels until
the formation of generalized theory, it has been not possible, at the least in the time
of protoscience, to make experiments with the phenomena such as the events
observed on the sky. On the other hand, colour, taste or smell were phenomena not
measurable at the time, but convenient for experimenting, for instance melting of
1 Chemistry and Philosophy of Science
13