Abstract
One of the consequences of the renewed interest in philosophical
aspects of chemistry has been the corresponding renewed interest
in the periodic system of the elements which embodies so much
chemical knowledge in an implicit form.We have therefore decided
to further promote scholarship on the periodic system by compiling
a bibliography of previously published material. As the title of this
article implies, we restrict ourselves to secondary sources. Readers
interested in primary material can consult a number of useful references
for this purpose. These include the classical treatment on the
History of the periodic system by van Spronsen as well as Mazurs’s
compilation of over 700 forms of the periodic system. Mazurs also
includes a detailed bibliography of articles and books in several
different languages. Additional sources of primary articles which
come to mind include David Knight’s Classics in the History of
Chemistry, Carmen Giunta’s web pages for the history of chemistry
and entries under individual scientists in the Dictionary of Scientific
Biography.
Turning to the present compilation we do not claim this to be
a comprehensive list, since it partly reflects the interests of the
senior author (E.R.S.), namely the relationship between the periodic
system and quantum mechanics. For example, in addition to articles
specifically on the periodic system we include a number of articles
which deal with the related themes of electronic configurations of
the elements. This bias also explains the disproportionate number of
references to the work of the senior author.We have tried to include
as many as possible of the articles on the periodic system which
have appeared in the philosophy of science literature. These include
Bensaude, Christie, Hettema and Kuipers, Kultgen, Lipton, Maher,
Scerri, Shapere and Sundaram, among others.