What is temperature, and how can we measure it correctly? These may seem like simple questions, but the most renowned scientists struggled with them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Inventing Temperature, Chang examines how scientists first created thermometers; how they measured temperature beyond the reach of standard thermometers; and how they managed to assess the reliability and accuracy of these instruments without a circular reliance on the instruments themselves.In a discussion that brings together the history of science with the philosophy of science, Chang presents the simple eet challenging epistemic and technical questions about these instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. Chang's book shows that many items of knowledge that we take for granted now are in fact spectacular achievements, obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and controversy. Lurking behind these achievements are some very important philosophical questions about how and when people accept the authority of science.
Author(s): Hasok Chang
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 304
Contents......Page 13
Note on Translation......Page 17
Chronology......Page 19
Introduction......Page 23
Blood, Butter, and Deep Cellars: The Necessity and Scarcity of Fixed Points......Page 28
The Vexatious Variations of the Boiling Point......Page 31
Superheating and the Mirage of True Ebullition......Page 37
Escape from Superheating......Page 43
The Understanding of Boiling......Page 48
A Dusty Epilogue......Page 55
Analysis: The Meaning and Achievement of Fixity......Page 59
The Validation of Standards: Justificatory Descent......Page 60
The Iterative Improvement of Standards: Constructive Ascent......Page 64
The Defense of Fixity: Plausible Denial and Serendipitous Robustness......Page 68
The Case of the Freezing Point......Page 73
The Problem of Nomic Measurement......Page 77
De Luc and the Method of Mixtures......Page 80
Caloric Theories against the Method of Mixtures......Page 84
The Calorist Mirage of Gaseous Linearity......Page 89
Regnault: Austerity and Comparability......Page 94
The Verdict: Air over Mercury......Page 99
The Achievement of Observability, by Stages......Page 104
Comparability and the Ontological Principle of Single Value......Page 109
Minimalism against Duhemian Holism......Page 112
Regnault and Post-Laplacian Empiricism......Page 116
Narrative: Measuring Temperature When Thermometers Melt and Freeze......Page 123
Can Mercury Be Frozen?......Page 124
Can Mercury Tell Us Its Own Freezing Point?......Page 127
Consolidating the Freezing Point of Mercury......Page 133
Adventures of a Scientific Potter......Page 138
It Is Temperature, but Not As We Know It?......Page 143
Ganging Up on Wedgwood......Page 148
Analysis: The Extension of Concepts beyond Their Birth Domains......Page 161
Travel Advisory from Percy Bridgman......Page 162
Beyond Bridgman: Meaning, Definition, and Validity......Page 168
Strategies for Metrological Extension......Page 172
Mutual Grounding as a Growth Strategy......Page 175
Narrative: The Quest for the Theoretical Meaning of Temperature......Page 179
Temperature, Heat, and Cold......Page 180
Theoretical Temperature before Thermodynamics......Page 188
William Thomson’s Move to the Abstract......Page 193
Thomson’s Second Absolute Temperature......Page 202
Semi-Concrete Models of the Carnot Cycle......Page 206
Using Gas Thermometers to Approximate Absolute Temperature......Page 212
The Hidden Difficulties of Reduction......Page 217
Dealing with Abstractions......Page 222
Operationalization and Its Validity......Page 225
Accuracy through Iteration......Page 232
Theoretical Temperature without Thermodynamics?......Page 237
5. Measurement, Justification, and Scientific Progress......Page 240
Measurement, Circularity, and Coherentism......Page 241
Making Coherentism Progressive: Epistemic Iteration......Page 244
Fruits of Iteration: Enrichment and Self-Correction......Page 248
Tradition, Progress, and Pluralism......Page 251
The Abstract and the Concrete......Page 253
6. Complementary Science—History and Philosophy of Science as a Continuation of Science by Other Means......Page 255
The Complementary Function of History and Philosophy of Science......Page 256
Philosophy, History, and Their Interaction in Complementary Science......Page 258
The Character of Knowledge Generated by Complementary Science......Page 260
Relations to Other Modes of Historical and Philosophical Study of Science......Page 267
A Continuation of Science by Other Means......Page 269
A......Page 271
C......Page 272
F......Page 273
I......Page 274
M......Page 275
P......Page 276
S......Page 277
W......Page 278
Bibliography......Page 279
A......Page 295
C......Page 296
E......Page 298
H......Page 299
J......Page 300
M......Page 301
O......Page 302
R......Page 303
S......Page 304
T......Page 305
Z......Page 306
