期刊名称：Hyle : International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
印刷版ISSN：1433-5158
出版年度：2010
卷号：16
期号：2
页码：47-79
出版社：HYLE Publications, Karlsruhe and University of Karlsruhe
摘要：Historians often feel that standard philosophical doctrines about the nature and development of science are not adequate for representing the real history of science. However, when philosophers of science fail to make sense of certain historical events, it is also possible that there is something wrong with the standard historical descriptions of those events, precluding any sensi-ble explanation. If so, philosophical failure can be useful as a guide for improv-ing historiography, and this constitutes a significant mode of productive inter-action between the history and the philosophy of science. I illustrate this methodological claim through the case of the Chemical Revolution. I argue that no standard philosophical theory of scientific method can explain why European chemists made a sudden and nearly unanimous switch of allegiance from the phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's theory. A careful re-examination of the history reveals that the shift was neither so quick nor so unanimous as imagined even by many historians. In closing I offer brief reflections on how best to explain the general drift toward Lavoisier's theory that did take place
关键词：Chemical Revolution; phlogiston; history and philosophy of science; ;scientific change; Lavoisier
