%0 Journal Article
%T The 'Instrumental' Reality of Phlogiston
%A Mi Gyung Kim
%J Hyle : International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
%D 2008
%I HYLE Publications, Karlsruhe and University of Karlsruhe
%X The stability of phlogiston in eighteenth-century French chemistry depended not on its role as a comprehensive theory, but on its operational (instrumental), theoretical, and philosophical (speculative) identities that were forged in different contexts, yet were interwoven to designate a single substance. It was as 'real' as any other chemical substance to the degree that it was obtained through material operations, occupied a place in the theoretical edifice of the affinity table, and was endowed with a corpuscular ontology. Lavoisier labeled it as an 'imaginary' substance because it offered a unique resistance to his vision of the new chemistry based on 'metric' measurements and algebraic representations.
%K philosophy of chemistry
%K eighteenth-century chemistry
%K Sulphur Principle
%K Fire
%K Phlogiston
%K affinity table
%U http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/14-1/kim.pdf