Molecular Representations: Building Tentative Links Between the History of Science and the Study of Cognition

This paper addresses questions concerning the cognitive character of nineteenth-century British molecular discourse. At a time when no proof of the existence or the intimate structure of the material particle was yet available or even possible, scientists were free to suggest and discuss possible, alternative, or even incompatible, molecular pictures of the unseen level of the material substratum, leaving aside all realistic considerations. The role of these molecular representations was to provide the necessary causal links between physical phenomena and underlying mechanisms, thus infusing intelligibility into scientific explanations. Focusing on processes of thinking rather than on formal theories, the analysis in this paper will suggest that, precisely because of its fluid character, molecular discourse produced a common universe of meanings which sustained an on-going thought experiment regarding the intimate structure of matter, and that, by so doing, it initiated a process of familiarisation of scientists with the unobservable realm. Beyond realism and scepticism, the attitude of nineteenth-century molecularists, which can be adequately described as `suspension of judgement', may prove highly suggestive in science education.