The Gulf between chemistry and philosophy of chemistry, then and now

Abstract

The article aims to introduce the sub-discipline of the philosophy of chemistry to the chemical community at large. The origins of the field are briefly reviewed including some possible causes for the delay in its arrival into the philosophy of science. Some critical remarks are leveled at some of the current work that has been conducted, and reasons for the gulf between philosophy of chemistry and mainstream chemistry are explored. Finally, a novel approach consists of a close examination of how scientific concepts evolve. This theme is discussed with the aid of the work of the early twentieth century amateur scientists Anton van den Broek, who first proposed that the elements in the periodic table should be ordered according to their atomic numbers rather than their atomic weights.