%0 Journal Article
%T The Reality of Phlogiston in Great Britain
%A John Stewart
%J Hyle : International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
%D 2012
%I HYLE Publications, Karlsruhe and University of Karlsruhe
%X Mi Gyung Kim (2008) has challenged the historiographical assumption that phlogiston was the paradigmatic concept in eighteenth century chemistry. Her analysis of the operational, theoretical, and philosophical identities of phlogiston demonstrates how Stahlian phlogiston was appropriated into the burgeoning field of affinity theory. However, this new French conception of phlogiston was destabilized by the introduction of Boerhaave's thermometrics. By extending this story through 1790, I will show that British pneumatic chemists integrated new understandings of heat with an affinity based operational definition of phlogiston and thereby stabilized the concept. What resulted was a new and very different phlogiston.
%K philosophy of chemistry
%K 18-century chemistry
%K Chemical Revolution
%K historical ontology
%K Richard Kirwan
%K phlogiston
%K fire
%U http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/18-2/stewart.pdf