I present a response to Vollmer's review of the book Of Minds and Molecules, and especially her comments on my own article therein. This provides an opportunity to discuss two central ideas in the philosophy of chemistry. These are the distinction between elements as simple substances (element-1) and elements as basic substances (element-2) and Paneth's proposed intermediate position for philosophy of chemistry. The response also discusses the question of isotopes in relationship to the nature of the elements and their classification (...) as well as the philosophical status of atomic orbitals. (shrink)

Lavoisier defined an element as a chemicalsubstance that cannot be decomposed usingcurrent analytical methods. Mendeleev saw anelement as a substance composed of atoms of thesame atomic weight. These `definitions' doquite different things: Lavoisier'sdistinguishes the elements from the compounds,so that the elements may form the basis of acompositional nomenclature; Mendeleev's offersa criterion of sameness and difference forelemental substances, while Lavoisier's doesnot. In this paper I explore the historical andtheoretical background to each proposal.Lavoisier's and Mendeleev's explicitconceptions of elementhood differed from eachother, and (...) from the official IUPAC definitionof `element' of the 1920s. However, Lavoisierand Mendeleev both subscribed to – andemployed – a deeper notion of a chemicalelement as the component of compound substancesthat (i) can survive chemical change, and (ii)explains the chemical behaviour of itscompounds. (shrink)

There is now a considerable body of published work on the epistemology of modern chemistry, especially with regard to the nature of quantum chemistry. In addition, the question of the metaphysical underpinnings of chemistry has received a good deal of attention. The present article concentrates on metaphysical considerations including the question of whether elements and groups of elements are natural kinds. It is also argued that an appeal to the metaphysical nature of elements can help clarify the re-emerging controversies among (...) chemists regarding the placement of the elements hydrogen and helium in the periodic system and the question of whether there exists a best form of the periodic table. (shrink)

Between 1869 and 1871, D. I. Mendeleev, a teacher at the University at St Petersburg published a textbook of general chemistry intended for his students. The title, Principles of Chemistry was typical for the time: it meant that chemistry was no longer an inquiry on the ultimate principles of matter but had become a science firmly established on a few principles derived from experiment.