The paper studies various functions of Berzelian formulas in European organic chemistry prior to the mid-nineteenth century from a semiotic, historical and epistemological perspective. I argue that chemists applied Berzelian formulas as productive ‘paper tools’ for creating a chemical order in the ‘jungle’ of organic chemistry. Beginning in the late 1820s, chemists applied chemical formulas to build models of the binary constitution of organic compounds in analogy to inorganic compounds. Based on these formula models, they constructed new classifications of organic (...) substances. They further applied Berzelian formulas in a twofold way to experimentally investigate organic chemical reactions: as tools which supplemented laboratory tools and as tools for constructing interpretive models of organic reactions. The scrutiny of chemists' performances with chemical formulas on paper also reveals a dialectic which contributed considerably to the formation of the new experimental culture of synthetic carbon chemistry that emerged between the late 1820s and the early 1840s. In an unintended and unforeseen way, the tools reacted back on the goals of their users and contributed to conceptual development and a shift of scientific objects and practices which transcended the originally intended chemical order. (shrink)

This paper studies the semiotic,epistemological and historical aspects of Berzelianformulas in early nineteenth-century organicchemistry. I argue that Berzelian formulas wereenormously productive `paper tools' for representingchemical reactions of organic substances, and forcreating different pathways of reactions. Moreover, myanalysis of Jean Dumas's application of Berzelianformulas to model the creation of chloral from alcoholand chlorine exemplifies the role played by chemicalformulas in conceptual development (the concept ofsubstitution). Studying the dialectic of chemists'collectively shared goals and tools, I argue thatpaper tools, like laboratory instruments, areresources (...) whose possibilities are not exhausted byscientists' attempts to achieve existing goals, butrather whose applications generate new goals. The term`paper tools' is introduced to emphasize that thepragmatic and syntactic aspects of symbol systems arefully comparable to physical laboratory tools. (shrink)

Chemistry is a highly technical field that relies heavily on a range of symbolic and imagic formalisms. These formalisms conceptualize specific chemical knowledge into semiotic resources that are rarely used elsewhere in most other academic fields or contexts. To develop an understanding of semiosis in highly technical fields such as chemistry, key questions include what this range of formalisms do and why they occur. These are key questions not only for our understanding of semiosis, but also if we wish to (...) develop integrated literacy programs that can support students to marshal the multimodal discourse of chemistry. This paper explores these questions by examining how three key chemical formalisms organize their meaning: symbolic formalisms known as chemical formulas and chemical equations, and an imagic formalism known as structural formulas. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and using a corpus of formalisms from secondary school chemistry, these formalisms are explored in terms of their overarching grammatical organization and the content meanings they realize through the concept of “field.” This is used to compare and contrast each formalism in terms of a semiotic typology so as to understand how they work and what meanings they realize. By exploring chemical formalisms in this way, this paper establishes a means of seeing the similarities and differences in meaning-making across formalisms and explaining why different formalisms occur. This then begins to provide a base upon which applied programs can interpret the literacy needs of chemistry. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce's epistemological theory of mental diagrams forms the theoretical basis of his attempt to analyze diagrammatic reasoning. Two examples, one from science and another from art, are examined to test the scope of this theory. While the first example shows how scientific diagrams form part of translation processes, similar processes are demonstrated in how paintings are received. The article attempts to connect Peirce and A. J. Greimas's theory of narrative. Relating the two proves useful in allowing Peirce's theory (...) of the connection between the three normative sciences to be discussed on a new basis. (shrink)

This article examines the revisionist role that current debates and philosophical positions on extended cognition might play for the historian of science, and uses as its case study August Kekulé’s formulation of the benzene molecule’s structure, including the dreams that Kekulé reported as the origin of his model. It builds on the notion of engaging philosophical positions through the historiography of nineteenth-century chemistry, but also examines some of the implications of the history of science for extended cognition. While an extended (...) cognition approach to Kekulé’s use of graphics and visual materials is promising, I argue that there is less usefulness for the idea of collective cognition. Instead I advocate using detailed historical studies to test theories of extended cognition. (shrink)

This paper examines the negative response to Dalton’s atomic symbols by situating them in the context of the normative eighteenth-century representational system of affinity tables. Aesthetic analysis of the affinity tables reveals them as schema embedded with a potent functionalist empiricism. In contrast, the aesthetics of Dalton's symbols is associated with hypothetico-deductivism and alchemical iconicism.