Abstract

Recent interest in the Chemical Revolutin is shaped by interpretive strateies assoicated with the emergence and development of the discipline of the history of science. Three stages in this development are analyzed in this paper, namely those assocaited with positivism, psotpositivism, and postmodernism. Since none of these interpretive strategies do justice to the complexity of historical evenets, a modle of the Chemical Revolution is outlined which upholds the autonomy and specificity of history and the strategies used to interpret it.