International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

ISSN: 0269-8595 (Print) 1469-9281 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cisp20

Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific

Field

Ana Simes

To cite this article: Ana Simes (2016) Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a

Scientific Field, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 30:3, 311-314, DOI:
10.1080/02698595.2017.1316117

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2017.1316117

Published online: 17 Aug 2017.

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 INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 311

an observable turns into a definite value of an observable after a measurement of that obser-
vable. There just are no definite values of observables if we take the probabilistic structure of
events seriously, so the story goes. Seemingly definite results arise in virtue of decoherence
associated with measurement processes, much like in current Everettian interpretations of
quantum mechanics, but, unlike Everettian interpretations, only one of the possible results
emerge. Emerge is the operative word because, strictly speaking, decoherence doesnt allow
one to assign definite values to quantum mechanical observables. That said, the decoherence
process does have the right probabilities associated with it to think that it reflects actual
measurement of observables, but not measurements that reveal pre-existing definite values.
There are a few points worth making about the interpretation Bub offers in Bananaworld.
First, ironically, absolutely none of the new work in foundations of quantum mechanics
described earlier in this review plays any role at all in the interpretation offered. Weve
known about non-definite values of observables since the 1960s, and decoherence since the
1970s, both the crucial components of Bubs information-theoretic interpretation of
quantum mechanics. Second, also ironically, since his information-theoretic turn, Bub has
suggested that providing an interpretation in the sense of fleshing out the bare quantum mech-
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anical formalism is not the right way to think about quantum mechanics, yet, thats exactly the
kind of view that is offered in the final chapter of the book, entitled Making Sense of It All.
Third, recognition of contextuality and decoherence certainly doesnt close the door to Bohms
theory, or Everettian interpretations, or GhirardiRiminiWeber theories either. Fourth, even
if one rejected adding hidden variables and modifications to the Schrdinger equation, no
reasons have been given to prefer Bubs interpretation to an Everettian one. They have iden-
tical mathematical machinery. As it stands, Bubs interpretation is a very thin sketch. That
sketch needs to be elaborated and the comparative advantages of it over other interpretations
need to be drawn out before it can be taken seriously.
Overall, I do recommend that well-educated people who are comfortable with the prob-
ability calculus and want to know about strange features of the quantum world read Banana-
world. I also recommend it to anyone interested in what has been happening in foundational
studies of quantum correlations over the last 20 years. It provides an excellent overview of
studies that are in the neighbourhood of quantum information theory and will provide a dili-
gent reader with an understanding of the mathematical techniques common to those studies.
That said, those readers looking for a novel, well-developed interpretation of quantum mech-
anics will not find it in this book.

Armond Duwell
Department of Philosophy, University of Montana
armond.duwell@umontana.edu
2017 Armond Duwell
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2017.1316110

Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field, by Manuel DeLanda,

London, Bloomsbury, 2015, xiv + 213 pp., ISBN 9781472591838, 20.00, US$34.00
(hardback); ISBN 9781474286404, 11.99, US$21.95 (paperback)

Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field is a refreshingly unexpected contri-

bution by the well-known filmmaker, computer artist, inexhaustible writer, and philosopher,
Manuel DeLanda. Presently, Gilles Deleuze Professor of Contemporary Philosophy and
 312 BOOK REVIEWS

Science at the European Graduate School, Switzerland, and previously lecturer in Architecture
at Princeton University, the Mexican-American theorist is best known among philosophers for
his reflections on the work of the French philosophers, Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze. He
is probably less well known among philosophers of science, despite his provocative reflections
on various scientific topics, including modern science, self-organising matter, artificial life and
intelligence, chaos theory, history of science, nonlinear dynamics, and cellular automata.
Positioning himself against the certainties of positivism and the excesses of constructivism,
in Philosophical Chemistry DeLanda interweaves philosophical considerations and historical
analysis to offer a model of the genealogy of a scientific field. Building on an impressive
command of the current expert literature on history of chemistry and philosophy of science
(referred to in the extensive notes and references at the end of the book), especially in the intro-
duction and last chapter (chapter 4, Social Chemistry), DeLanda establishes a dialogue with
proposals by reputed philosophers of science and scholars in science and technology studies as
a springboard for a philosophical analysis of selected stages in the history of chemistry pre-
sented in the three central chapters. In fact, the complexity of the evolving domain of chem-
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istry, shaped by the pervasive cohabitation of various cultures and reasoning styles, provides
fertile ground for a philosophical analysis in the longue dure, starting with the emergence
of classical (inorganic) chemistry in the eighteenth century (chapter 1, Classical Chemistry),
and followed in the nineteenth century in an overall divergent movement by its parallel devel-
opment through specialisation into organic chemistry (chapter 2, Organic Chemistry) and
hybridisation into physical chemistry (chapter 3, Physical Chemistry).
In the introduction, DeLanda outlines a model for a scientific field able to accommodate
diversity (variation and differentiation) of scientific practice. It builds on four components:
a domain of phenomena; a community of practitioners; a set of instruments and techniques
connecting the domain to the community; and finally the establishment of consensus practice
as a form of stabilisation of previous individual achievements (personal practices). The first
three components replace the unacceptable reified generalities embodied in Science and
Nature, the last that embodied in Culture.
In the case of chemistry, the domain of objective phenomena (given or fabricated, and
sharing the properties of being publicly recognisable, recurrent, and noteworthy) contains sub-
stances (accounting for the composition of bodies) and chemical reactions (accounting for
dynamics of interactions). The domain grows in time, accommodating ever more substances
and reactions, posing new problems to practitioners, but constantly eluding the goal of a final
and definitive account (x). The personal practices of community members are shaped by a set
of cognitive tools (concepts, statements, problems, explanatory, and taxonomic schemes), a
heterogeneous collection of individual items not a monolithic theory (xi), acquired by train-
ing and deployed skilfully in the laboratory and in other spaces of practices. The set of instru-
ments and techniques connecting the domain to the community may play the role of mere
tools enriching the domain, but may also enable new experiments, otherwise impossible to
perform, and extending the domain to new unexpected realms.
While the first three components of a scientific field are DeLandas response to proposals by
the philosophers of science Stephen Toulmin, Dudley Shapere, Ian Hacking, Philip Kitcher,
and Frederick Suppe, the last component builds on Kitcher but gives a prominent place to
the role of textbooks, following Thomas S. Kuhn and recent work by historians of science.
Textbooks are indeed privileged historical sources to probe and identify the move from per-
sonal to consensus practices, identifying from the variety of improvable cognitive tools used
by specific members of a community those which became collectively accepted and taught
to the next generation of practitioners.
 INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 313

The three central chapters are organised in two parts. The first, more traditional from a phi-
losophical perspective, is dedicated to a discussion of the cognitive content and tools deployed
in each sub-field, that is, classical, organic, and physical chemistry. Starting with problems
expressed by two recurrent questions, Why does substance X have properties Y and Z
instead of other properties? and Why does the reaction of substance X with substance Y
have substance Z as its product, instead of other products?, DeLanda builds on the views of
participants as voiced in various disputes and controversies to show how consensual stages
unfolded, expressing them by means of the part-to-whole and affinity explanatory schemes.
The second part uses representative textbooks separated by a 50-year period to identify the
establishment of consensus practices, and is a very welcome and innovative addition in a phi-
losophical book.
In chapter 1, centred on the controversy surrounding phlogiston and the move to the
oxygen framework, the textbook selected for the first 50-year period is the respected Pierre-
Joseph Macquers Elements of Chemistry (1749, 1751), while the textbook selected for the
second 50-year period is the Scottish chemist John Murrays A System of Chemistry (1806),
on account of its ability to convey the perspective of the (non-French) losers of the contro-
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versy. In chapter 2, the selection covering the first 50-year period falls on the introductory
course by Adolphe Wurtz, An Introduction to Chemical Philosophy According to the
Modern Theories (1867), published following his attendance of the first international confer-
ence on chemistry, Karlsruhe, 1860, in which questions of chemical nomenclature and nota-
tion and atomic, molecular, and equivalent weights were debated. For the second half of the
century, the textbook selected is August Bernthsens A Textbook of Organic Chemistry
(1902). In chapter 3, the survey of consensus practices at the frontier between chemistry
and physics around 1850 is based on William Allen Millers textbook Elements of Chemistry:
Theoretical and Practical. Part 1, Chemical Physics (1855), while for the second 50-year period
DeLanda opted for a joint consideration of three textbooks, in order to cover both inorganic
and physical chemistry, from the opposing atomist and anti-atomist standpoints. They are
Wilhelm Ostwalds The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry: An Introduction to All Textbooks
of Chemistry (1909), Walter Nernsts Theoretical Chemistry from the Standpoint of Avogadros
Rule and Thermodynamics (1904), and William Ramsays A System of Inorganic Chemistry
(1891).
In the closing chapter, Social Chemistry, DeLanda builds on the examples discussed in
previous chapters to support his criticism of the positivist and constructivist denial of scientific
objectivity on the grounds of the underdetermination of theory choice by laboratory evidence.
He counters that underdetermination is just local and transitory, and that it is possible to take
seriously the assessment of the role of social conventions, myths, propaganda, rhetoric, and
authority in scientific practice without advocating their constitutive role as positivists and con-
structivists do.
Despite DeLandas choice to elect time as a central component in any philosophical work,
for most of the selected textbooks, no justification is provided for their representative charac-
ter, and often their complete identification is relegated to the notes, an awkward option for a
historically minded philosophical author. DeLanda also ends his analysis around 1900 for
reasons not totally acceptable on historical (longue dure) grounds but partially justifiable
on account of the less abundant secondary bibliography on which to rely, a problem impacting
already on the chapter Physical Chemistry. Such an extension could stimulate a potentially
fruitful conversation with the recent literature on philosophy of chemistry by authors such
as Jaap van Brakel and Joachim Schummer, cursorily referred to but not seriously discussed.
From a historical perspective, it is also intriguing that DeLanda opted to call his book Phi-
losophical Chemistry. Since at least the seventeenth century, British books on chemistry opted
 314 BOOK REVIEWS

for titles containing Chemical Philosophy (French titles used Philosophie chimique) to stress
the status of chemistry as an area striving to partake some of the characteristics of natural phil-
osophy, going beyond the mere accumulation of facts and recipes and looking for the causal
connections among chemical substances and reactions. For unclear reasons, historians of
science have at times referred to these books content as philosophical chemistry. In my
opinion, the selection of Philosophical Chemistry as the title of a book that is a historically
informed contribution to philosophy of chemistry does not help clarify this confused geneal-
ogy in between chemistry, history, and philosophy.
It is indeed intriguing to note that the genealogy of chemistry has caught the attention of
such a creative and thought-provoking thinker as DeLanda. One can identify some strands of
thought shared with previous works such as Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, A New
Philosophy of Society or Philosophy and Simulation (DeLanda 2002, 2006, 2011). They include
the distinction between properties and capacities in different scientific fields, the role of rela-
tive autonomous social units of analysis between the micro-level of individual practitioners
and the macro-level of society as a whole, and the power of mathematical laws, comprising
their ontological content.
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By seriously paying attention to history in order to build a new philosophical model for
chemistry, DeLanda contributes to the thriving field of integrated history and philosophy of
science, despite his apparent unawareness of contributions by this community of scholars,
among whom Hasok Changs reflections in Is Water H2O? (2012) are of particular interest
to Philosophical Chemistry. Already dubbed by John Protevi a Deleuzean take on Foucaults
Archaeology of Knowledge, DeLandas tour de force in Philosophical Chemistry reveals the
power of borrowing and traversing intellectual and scientific fields.

References
Chang, Hasok. 2012. Is Water H2O? Evidence, Pluralism and Realism. Dordrecht: Springer.
DeLanda, Manuel. 2002. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London: Continuum.
DeLanda, Manuel. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London:
Continuum.
DeLanda, Manuel. 2011. Philosophy and Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason. London: Continuum.

Ana Simes
Centro Interuniversitrio de Histria das Cincias e Tecnologia, Faculdade de Cincias,
Universidade de Lisboa
aisimoes@fc.ul.pt
2017 Ana Simes
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2017.1316117

Objectivity in Science: New Perspectives from Science and Technology Studies,

edited by Flavia Padovani, Alan Richardson, and Jonathan Y. Tsou, Cham, Springer,
2015, vi + 226 pp., ISBN 9783319143484, US$129 (hardback); ISBN 9783319382937,
US$129 (paperback)

The current political and social climate is characterised by widespread scepticism towards the
value and reliability of scientific research and other intellectual endeavours. For example, the
rhetoric of alternative facts seems to have become accepted in mainstream politics, while anti-