The term philosophy of chemistry is here construed broadly to include some publications from the history of chemistry and chemical education. Of course this initial selection of material has inevitably been biased by the interests of the author. This bibliography supersedes that of van Brakel and Vermeeren (1981), although no attempt has been made to include every single one of their entries, especially in languages other than English. Also, readers interested particularly in articles in German may wish to consult the (...) bibliography by Dittus and Mayer which also contains some material not included here (Dittus and Mayer, 1992). The aim is to maintain an up-to-date version of this bibliography and to publish a revised version in due course. Suggestions for further inclusions should be sent to the author. (shrink)

The problem of the peculiarcharacter of chemical laws and theories is a central topic in philosophy of chemistry. Oneof the most characteristic and, at the sametime, most puzzling examples in discussions onchemical laws and theories is Mendeleev''speriodic law. This law seems to be essentiallydifferent in its nature from the exact laws ofclassical physics, the latter being usuallyregarded as a paradigm of science byphilosophers. In this paper the main argumentsconcerning the peculiar character of chemicallaws and theories are examined. The laws ofchemistry (...) are natural laws to the same extentas are the laws of physics. The law discoveredby Mendeleev is a normal law of nature. It isnot a law of physics, nevertheless, it is exactin the same philosophical sense as are the lawsof physics. The periodic system of chemicalelements was established by constructing anidealized system of idealized elements. Thefundamental idealization substantiated byexperimental chemistry was the chemicalelement as a place in the periodicsystem. (shrink)

One of the consequences of the renewed interest in philosophical aspects of chemistry has been the corresponding renewed interest in the periodic system of the elements which embodies so much chemical knowledge in an implicit form.We have therefore decided to further promote scholarship on the periodic system by compiling a bibliography of previously published material. As the title of this article implies, we restrict ourselves to secondary sources. Readers interested in primary material can consult a number of useful references for (...) this purpose. These include the classical treatment on the History of the periodic system by van Spronsen as well as Mazurs’s compilation of over 700 forms of the periodic system. Mazurs also includes a detailed bibliography of articles and books in several different languages. Additional sources of primary articles which come to mind include David Knight’s Classics in the History of Chemistry, Carmen Giunta’s web pages for the history of chemistry and entries under individual scientists in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Turning to the present compilation we do not claim this to be a comprehensive list, since it partly reflects the interests of the senior author (E.R.S.), namely the relationship between the periodic system and quantum mechanics. For example, in addition to articles specifically on the periodic system we include a number of articles which deal with the related themes of electronic configurations of the elements. This bias also explains the disproportionate number of references to the work of the senior author.We have tried to include as many as possible of the articles on the periodic system which have appeared in the philosophy of science literature. These include Bensaude, Christie, Hettema and Kuipers, Kultgen, Lipton, Maher, Scerri, Shapere and Sundaram, among others. (shrink)