I would like to say a few words about this special issue of the journal and conclude with some comments about the importance of the discussion of foundational issues to chemistry and chemical education. For the first part of the 20th century, the philosophy of science was synonymous with the philosophy of physics. Following the great achievements of the biological sciences starting at mid-century and given the obvious differences between biology and physics, a distinct field called the philosophy of biology emerged. Nowhere to be seen was a discussion of philosophical issues related to chemistry. The reason? Arguably, the widely held assumption that, in spite of the obvious difficulties in doing so, all of chemistry can, in principle, be reduced to physics. The emergence of the philosophy of chemistry in the last few years has been, in part, a sustained argument against the possibility of such a reduction and an attempt to establish the autonomy of chemistry. The periodic system, as mentioned, has played a central role in this argument.

This issue of Foundations is an attempt to continue the conversation. It consists of Scerri’s editorial in which he introduces the issues at stake and then three main articles. The first is by Carmen Giunta, a chemical educator at Le Moyne College. Her paper is concerned with the story of how argon became “the piece that would not fit” soon after its discovery in 1894. The second paper, by Helge Kragh, a historian of physics at Århus University in Denmark, concerns the early attempts to explain the periodic system in terms of atomic models. The third, by V. N. Ostrovsky, a theoretical physicist at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia, is about the philosophical nature of the explanations that physics provides for the periodic law. The issue concludes with an extensive bibliography of secondary sources on the periodic system compiled by Scerri and Jacob Edwards. While this review is not the place to comment on the details of the three articles, suffice it to say that the first two papers are fundamentally historical papers that raise philosophical issues and that the third is primarily a technical philosophical paper on the nature of physical explanations. All three are good contributions to the ongoing conversation that presuppose some degree of familiarity with the issues raised by the philosophy of chemistry in the last few years. The bibliography will be a valuable resource to those interested in the philosophy of chemistry.

What is the significance of journals such as Foundations to chemistry and chemical education? To the extent that understanding science as an activity and chemistry, in particular, as a field is important, journals dedicated to the discussion of foundational issues in science make an important contribution. Foundations is certainly an indication of the increased interest in academic circles on the philosophy of chemistry. Does (should?) the existence of journals dedicated to the discussion of foundational issues in chemistry impact the way chemistry is taught? The journal clearly states that it is dedicated to “philosophical, historical, educational and interdisciplinary studies of chemistry” so it clearly sees a connection.

Here the issues are of great practical importance. I’ll separate them into two areas. First, just a superficial exposure to foundational issues renders the naive view of the scientific method untenable. The initial article in this issue, by Giunta, clearly shows scientists engaged in coming up with the “best account” of the evidence available to them. They were, of course, trying to make argon “fit” into the periodic system and therefore inevitably reading the evidence within a series of presuppositions determined by their conception of the periodic system. The point is that one does not get a sense of the application of a “method” of any kind. This is always the lesson of the history of science. Second, there is no question that textbooks, what we teach, and the way we teach it are influenced by philosophical presuppositions. All general chemistry textbooks are heavily influenced by reductionist assumptions. A quantum mechanical model of the atom from which everything follows precedes the variation of atomic properties and the chemistry of the elements. I have to say here that the triumph of this model, in my view, results not only from its explanatory power (the fact that it is not as great as it is claimed is one of the central claims this journal tries to make), but because reduction entails simplification and simplification is always pedagogically attractive. I, for one, think that the reductive enterprise is untenable but I recognize the immense pedagogical advantage of the current model. The following question seems to me an important one: must science pedagogy be necessarily reductive? The answer may be yes even if reduction is impossible. These are important issues and thanks to journals such as Foundations we know that the conversation will continue.