Die Chemie zwischen Aufklaerung und Romantik

Chemistry played a crucial role in the German Naturphilosophie, and particularly in the philosophy of the young F.W.J. Schelling. Schelling was one of the promoters of a Romantic physics that was to overcome the modern, mechanical physics. The new chemistry and the electrochemistry were considered a relevant instrument for a new consideration of science and a new philosophical approach to scientific research. The paper is published in a volume devoted to analyse Schelling's Vorlesungen ueber die Methode des akademischen Studiums, and considers the shift of the cultural meaning of chemistry from the Enlightenment to Romanticism. The first part of the paper is devoted to clarify the status and the methods of chemistry in the German states at the end of the eighteenth century, with references to the influential Swedish mineralogical chemistry and the mechanical chemistry proposed in Russia by Michail Vasilevic Lomonosov. A particular attention is also devoted to A.-L. Lavoisier's theory and its destiny in Germany. The second part of the essay concerns the European influence of Paris chemistry at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the competion between French and British chemistry, with particular reference to Sir Humphry Davy's discoveries and to his project for a trascendental chemistry, that is a Romantic vision of chemystry. Davy considered chemistry as a science which was to answer to some metaphysical questions and problems,and not limited to the study of the structure and of changes of matter. Davy's approach was not hghly popular in Britain because some chemists and natural philosophers preferred John Dalton's approach which was atomistic, rational without any reference to a metaphysical, trascendental part of chemistry. The Swede J.J. Berzelius became the most important European chemist of the the first half of the Nineteenth century, and through an analysis of his Larbok i kemien (first volume 1808) the paper demonstrates that Berzelius was a man of the Enlightenment who lived in the Romantic age; Berzelius was a strong opponent to the Naturphilosophie and considered Schelling a man who did not have a true understanding of science. In Germany only a part of the chemical community followed Berzelius's ideas and theories, because a Romantic science was popular among philosophers and scientists. Considering the European context of chemistry the papers aims to demonstrate tha chemistry had a deep influence on philosophy at the beginning of the Nineteenth century and that in the Romantic Age there were different approaches to chemistry that were in competion and influencial in various different contexts.