Abstract

Philosophy of science arose from debates among scientists about the right method of pursuing true knowledge at times when modern science was only in its infancy. The epistemological heritage is still reflected in the corresponding terms in French, épistémologie, and in German, Wissenschaftstheorie. Another root derives from the meaning of philosophy, as in ‘natural philosophy’, which was used to denote the physical sciences still in the nineteenth century before it was split off and received its particular metaphysical meaning. Yet, besides epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy has many other branches from which reflections on science are useful. One such branch is ethics, such as chemistry is a branch of the sciences. Thus, from a systematical point of view, ethics of chemistry is a proper part of philosophy of science, whether or not any of the nineteenth-century classics said anything meaningful about that. It is that systematical background against which ‘philosophy of chemistry’ receives its full meaning. Since HYLE is devoted to philosophy of chemistry, we open a discussion on ethics of chemistry with this special issue. (For a comprehensive list of topics, see our Call for Papers .).