History-writing as a scientific intervention: chemistry and its histories, 1750–1800

Thesis

The thesis analyses histories of chemistry as interventions in scientific praxis in France and Germany between 1750 and 1800. It explores how, through the form and content of works on the history of their field, chemists positioned themselves in methodological and epistemological controversies which arose both from chemical investigations and from the chemists’ interactions with neighbouring fields. Additionally, historical narratives responded to controversies on the discipline’s methodology voiced by other naturalists and served to consolidate its contested status within academic institutions. The chemist-historians flexibly adopted methods and concepts from other contemporary realms of historical inquiry. Thus, they created a diverse body of literarily complex and conceptually advanced historical works.

After an overview of chemistry as a field of study and its place in the Republic of Letters in chapter 1, the thesis shows how mid eighteenth-century histories of chemistry were designed to suggest that chemical methods conformed with the standards postulated by prominent philosophies of the natural sciences. By applying the techniques of conjectural history-writing, the evolution of chemistry’s investigative practices was portrayed as a standard case of scientific progress in the natural sciences. Additionally, critical historical investigations featured in a debate on the status of alchemy and the uneasy heritage of hermetic philosophy. The second part of the thesis concentrates on the Chemical Revolution (chapter 2). In the 1780s, Antoine de Lavoisier surveyed the detrimental effect which theoretical preconceptions and nomenclature had had on chemistry’s progress to defend his approach against British critics. Numerous German chemists critically revised Lavoisier’s claims and drafted innovative histories of the field to mark their position in the debate (chapter 3 and 4). Concomitantly, the French chemist Antoine de Fourcroy defended Lavoisier’s claims by historicising various aspects of the latter’s theory and by reconstructing its emergence in the interdisciplinary setting of Parisian salon culture (chapter 5). Thus, by 1800, a wide array of methods and concepts had emerged to address the evolution of knowledge, in chemistry and beyond.

Authors: Eigler, K

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-pdk5jm5ov
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: eighteenth-century chemistry; historiography of science; history of science; history of historical writing; historiography; history-writing
• Subjects: History