Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry

The riddle that this collection of essays poses to the chemist, and to the interested general reader, is that while chemists seem to be inherently aware of the philosophical streams of thought that run through their subject, and while they are obviously the most adept at conducting their science and do not need advice from philosophers on how to do it, they are not particularly good at taking a step back from their work and describing and characterizing the nature of their work.