Laws in Chemistry

Abstract

This chapter proposes to distinguish strictly between chemical processes that occur in the material world, be it in laboratories or in nature, and descriptions of those processes. The distinction between chemical phenomena and descriptions of chemical phenomena has not always been strictly adhered to. Certain such descriptions are given the accolade of “Law.” Others are not. Some authors have written as if natural phenomena themselves were laws, a mistake carefully dissected by Bunge. The chapter assumes that only statements can be laws. In the context of scientific discourses law statements have lost at least one aspect of the mandatory character of laws in the legal sense. Natural phenomena do not “obey” the laws and law-like statements found in chemistry books in any other than a metaphorical sense. In chemistry very few general statements are explicitly called “laws.” Those that are not borrowings from physics are usually survivors from chemical nomenclatures of the early nineteenth century. However, the discourse of chemistry is rich in general statements. The most important surely are chemical equations, symbolic descriptions of the presumed structure of chemically recognized substances and the processes of transformation of material substances from one sort to another. This chapter begins with a brief catalogue of some of those propositions that are commonly referred to as laws in chemistry texts.