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35On Chemical Natural KindsJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (3): 427-445. 2020.A critique of LaPorte's views on chemical kinds, like jade and ruby, is presented. More positively, a new slant is provided on the question of whether elements are natural kinds. This is carried out by appeal to the dual nature of elements, a topic that has been debated in the philosophy of chemistry but not in the natural kinds literature. It is claimed that the abstract notion of elements, as opposed to their being simple substances, is relevant to the Kripke–Putnam approach to natural kinds a…Read more
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22Causation, electronic configurations and the periodic tableSynthese 198 (10): 9709-9720. 2020.The article examines a recent interventionist account of causation by Ross, in which electronic configurations of atoms are considered to be the cause of chemical behavior. More specifically I respond to the claim that a change in electronic configuration of an atom, such as occurs in the artificial synthesis of elements, causes a change in the behavior of the atom in question. I argue that chemical behavior is governed as much by the nuclear charge of an atom as it is by its electronic structur…Read more
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443What is an element? What is the periodic table? And what does quantum mechanics contribute to the question?Foundations of Chemistry 14 (1): 69-81. 2011.This article considers two important traditions concerning the chemical elements. The first is the meaning of the term “element” including the distinctions between element as basic substance, as simple substance and as combined simple substance. In addition to briefly tracing the historical development of these distinctions, I make comments on the recent attempts to clarify the fundamental notion of element as basic substance for which I believe the term “element” is best reserved. This discussi…Read more
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196Editorial 40Foundations of Chemistry 14 (1): 1-2. 2012.Editorial 40 Content Type Journal Article Category Editorial Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10698-012-9148-y Authors Eric R. Scerri, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238
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49Contribution to a symposium on Alan Chalmer's The Scientist’s Atom and the Philosopher’s Stone: How Science Succeeded and Philosophy Failed to Gain Knowledge of Atoms (Springer, Dordrecht, 2009).
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293The periodic table and the turn to practiceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. forthcoming.The philosopher of chemistry Andrea Woody has recently published a wide-ranging article concerning the turn to practice in the philosophy of science. Her primary example consists of the use of different forms of representations by Lothar Meyer and Mendeleev when they presented their views on chemical periodicity. Woody believes that this distinction can cast light on various issues including why Mendeleev was able to make predictions while Meyer was not. Secondly, she claims that it can clarify t…Read more
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33Five ideas in chemical education that must dieFoundations of Chemistry 21 (1): 61-69. 2019.The article concerns five traditionally difficult issues that chemical educators encounter and how they should be resolved. In some cases I propose the examination of necessary and sufficient conditions in order to cast light on the relationships under discussion. The five educational issues are, the notion that a pH value of seven implies a neutral solution of water and vice versa, the use of Le Châtelier’s Principle, the relative occupation and ionization of 4s and 3d orbitals, the explanation…Read more
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1810. Interdisciplinary Research at the Caltech Beckman InstituteIn Peter Weingart & Nico Stehr (eds.), Practising Interdisciplinarity, University of Toronto Press. pp. 194-214. 2000.
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8Mendeleev to Oganesson: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on the Periodic Table (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.Since 1969, the international chemistry community has only held conferences on the topic of the Periodic Table three times, and the 2012 conference in Cusco, Peru was the first in almost a decade. The conference was highly interdisciplinary, featuring papers on geology, physics, mathematical and theoretical chemistry, the history and philosophy of chemistry, and chemical education, from the most reputable Periodic Table scholars across the world. Eric Scerri and Guillermo Restrepo have collected…Read more
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12Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline (edited book)Springer. 2014.This volume follows the successful book, which has helped to introduce and spread the Philosophy of Chemistry to a wider audience of philosophers, historians, science educators as well as chemists, physicists and biologists. The introduction summarizes the way in which the field has developed in the ten years since the previous volume was conceived and introduces several new authors who did not contribute to the first edition. The editors are well placed to assemble this book, as they are the ed…Read more
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244Bibliography on philosophy of chemistrySynthese 111 (3): 305-324. 1997.The term philosophy of chemistry is here construed broadly to include some publications from the history of chemistry and chemical education. Of course this initial selection of material has inevitably been biased by the interests of the author. This bibliography supersedes that of van Brakel and Vermeeren (1981), although no attempt has been made to include every single one of their entries, especially in languages other than English. Also, readers interested particularly in articles in German …Read more
Eric Scerri
UCLA
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UCLADepartment of Chemistry and BiochemistryLecturer