Lavoisier

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani sees Lavoisier above all as the founder of chemistry as a science, in the eighteenth century and about a century after Newton1. He often comes back to the moment when chemistry breaks away from philosophy and becomes independent2. According to him, Lavoisier founds chemistry by putting measurement in the place of alchemy3. He singles out the analysis of air and water, where to analyse means to decompose, and he takes this up in a session on the logics of the subject4. Lavoisier is also mentioned among the scientists whom the Encyclopédie made known to a wide public. In a recent session devoted to "the Lavoisier case", he reads the Elementary Treatise of Chemistry closely. He notes that Lavoisier wrote this treatise while first trying to improve chemical nomenclature5. He takes from it the idea that every science is made of facts, ideas and words, and that a science cannot be advanced without questioning its language6. In this way he links Lavoisier to the question of how language and thought relate. He also mentions in passing that Lavoisier was guillotined during the Revolution.

1. 19 #16 Comment des sciences de l'histoire peuvent-elles être réelles?4 Mar 2021 · 1:07:09
2. 2Dominique Pagani sur Michel Clouscard - Les chemins de la praxis 1/28 Dec 2015 · 46:10
3. 3Hegel Plage 3/52 Feb 2016 · 31:48
4. 4#11 • Retour aux logiques du sujet21 Jun 2020 · 47:19
5. 5Langage et pensée : Le cas Lavoisier13 Apr 2026 · 57:46
6. 6Langage et pensée : Le cas Lavoisier13 Apr 2026 · 1:04:24

Summary produced automatically from 13 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.