Integrating Epistemological Perspectives on Chemistry in Chemical Education: The Cases of Concept Duality, Chemical Language, and Structural Explanations

Date

2013-07-01

Author

Kaya, Ebru
Erduran, Sibel

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

219
views

0
downloads

In this paper, we trace the work of some philosophers of chemistry to draw some implications for the improvement of chemical education. We examine some key features of chemical knowledge, and how these features are relevant for school chemistry teaching and learning. In particular, we examine Laszlo's (Foundations of Chemistry 1:225-238, 1999) notion of concept duality, Jacob's (HYLE-International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry 7:31-50, 2001) descriptions of chemical language and Goodwin's (Foundations of Chemistry 10:117-127, 2008) explication of structural explanations in organic chemistry to highlight the particular ways in which chemical knowledge is structured. We use examples of textbooks and curricula to illustrate that even though the mentioned aspects of are relevant to and are covered in educational contexts, the philosophical dimensions of this coverage is absent in textbooks and curricula. The emphasis in the use of these features of chemical knowledge seems to be more on the conceptual definitions rather than on their "epistemological nature". We argue that chemical education will be improved through the inclusion of the philosophical perspectives in chemistry teaching and learning by highlighting the specific ways in which chemical knowledge functions.

Subject Keywords

Philosophy

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/62708

Journal

SCIENCE & EDUCATION

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-011-9399-3

Collections

Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

A discussion on how to formulate the question of contingency in Leibniz's system: a logical approach Besler, Arman; Grünberg, David; Department of Philosophy (2008) The main objective of this study is to shed light on some difficulties involved in the formulation of the problem of contingency in Leibniz’s philosophical system. Leibniz’s mature philosophy is characterized by the solutions he proposes for this problem, and the ontological ideas underlying or assisting them. ‘The problem of contingency’ refers to the tension between his conceptual containment theory of truth and his claim that true existential propositions that is, propositions which concern actual indiv...
The concepts of health and sickness in Nietzsche's philosophy Akbalık, Bilge; Parkan, Barış; Department of Philosophy (2009) The purpose of the present study is to assess the role of the concepts of health and sickness in Nietzsche’s philosophy. While doing this, our basic presupposition will be that these concepts owe their special place to their being the new criteria for Nietzsche’s project of revaluation of all existing values. Nietzsche was philosophizing in the face of the crisis of 19th century Europe, that is, nihilism. According to him, Western traditional thought is based on an otherworldly oriented conception of life t...
Revisiting immanence and conatus in Spinoza Yaylım, Berk; İnam, Ahmet; Department of Philosophy (2015) This thesis focuses on the concept of immanence in Spinoza’s philosophy and its importance in explicating theory of knowledge and conatus. While accounting for immanence, it will seek not only his metaphysics but also a critical discussion of transcendence and emanation. After the metaphysical system behind his philosophy is explained, his defense of necessitarianism will be emphasized. In this study, under the light of these, a coherent interpretation of Spinoza’s solutions, how these relate to his theory ...
The problem of justice in the philosophies of Rousseau and Kant Ünlü, Özlem; Turan, Şeref Halil; Department of Philosophy (2011) The aim of this study is to make a comparison between Rousseau’s and Kant’s theory of justice. This thesis defends the arguments of Rousseau’s democratic political theory against the claims raised by Kant. Rousseau and Kant formulate how to relieve the tension between individual and society. This tension is the one between individual and political freedom. Rousseau calls it the tension between moral and political freedom and Kant terms it as internal and external freedom. However, Rousseau ensures continuit...
A Philosophical approach to upper-level ontologies Satıoğlu, Dilek; Zambak, Aziz Fevzi; Department of Philosophy (2015) The aim of this thesis is to provide a philosophical approach to upper-level ontologies. The ontologies and/or categorical system of Aristotle, Kant, Husserl, and Quine are evaluated in order to give a philosophical understanding of ontologies. After an explanation of the developments in ontology as a new interdisciplinary study, the most well known upper-level ontologies, BFO, DOLCE, SUMO, and Cyc, are analysed technically. In the light of philosophical ontologies and categorical systems, these upper-level...

Citation Formats

E. Kaya and S. Erduran, “Integrating Epistemological Perspectives on Chemistry in Chemical Education: The Cases of Concept Duality, Chemical Language, and Structural Explanations,” SCIENCE & EDUCATION, pp. 1741–1755, 2013, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/62708.