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In a steamy new drama, Jennifer Lopez stars as sexy New York detective and single mother Harlee Santos, who fell in with a tight-knit group of dirty cops, taking bribes and protection money that she uses to provide the best life for her honest, talented daughter. But when she's trapped by the FBI and forced to inform on her own "brothers," she'll have to walk the fine line between love, loyalty, honor and betrayal, and try to keep it together for her daughter's future.
Shades of Blue Episodes
False Face, False Heart
Who Can Tell Me Who I Am?
Equal & Opposite
Undiscovered Country
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Live Wire Act
What Devil Do
The Breach
For I Have Sinned
One Last Lie
Eye of the Hurricane
Unpaid Debts
Chaos Is Come Again
Whoever Fights Monsters
The Quality of Mercy
Broken Dolls
Good Police
The Hollow Crown
That Way Madness Lies
A Walking Shadow
The Blue Wall
Straight Through the Heart
Goodnight, Sweet Prince
By Virtue Fall
Myrtw2 - 03-07-2019 10:05:45 pm
Cugino - 08-01-2016 9:58:30 am
I got chills Ray Liotta was awesome great hook at the end of the first episode
J22 - 08-01-2016 6:44:48 am
yes knew this would be a good show
Drea de Matteo
Santino Fontana
Vincent Laresca
Hampton Fluker
Dayo Okeniyi
Warren Kole
Cugino
Shades of Bull "winkle"
But even BULLWINKLE is better... I tried, sigh. But after Thursday night's episode where she meets Ray cuz he suspects her and "wants answers" and sh ...
But even BULLWINKLE is better... I tried, sigh. But after Thursday night's episode where she meets Ray cuz he suspects her and "wants answers" and she strips down to bra and he turns , telling her to get dressed and THEN....the camera pans behind her and LO AND HOLY BEHOLD there is a GIANT wiretap gizmo strapped to her back!!! Say what????? How stupid is that???? Did she WANT to get caught? Why would she allow that FBI guy to do that? All Ray had to do was a) sweep her with a metal detector or b)give her a hug after she's dressed and then he would have felt it or c) have his buddy hiding BEHIND Jennifer where the device would have been seen.This was just the straw for me. From the first episode where she covered for her partner on a perfectly good shoot to faking the car crash I knew this series was doomed. And it's too bad because Lopez is not a bad actor and Liotto is good. Horrible writing.
LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! I'm not a huge Jennifer Lopez fan but this series is amazing!!!!!
LOOOOOOVE IT! do not believe all of negative reviews....it is such a nice show...I have watched 3 episodes and I am hooked....I'm not really a Jennif ...
LOOOOOOVE IT! do not believe all of negative reviews....it is such a nice show...I have watched 3 episodes and I am hooked....I'm not really a Jennifer Lopez fan but after this I can see why people watch her show....I am so impressed I did not think I'd like it but I was so wrong....the bad reviews threw me off but I really cannot relate! this is my new favorite show this year I've enjoyed so many new shows that have become all favorites this year (and 20150 like Mr Robot, Jessica Jones and Daredevil. At the beginning of the first episode I was still skeptical but I was won over as the episode progressed...I'm not normally into this kind of genre of series but I'm so impressed...if you're bored and looking for a new series to watch this is perfect,
Crime drama!! Jlo!!
OK so I am a huge Jennifer lopez fan HUGE FAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I saw the pilot and I was thinking hmmmmmmm I don't know about this show but no ...
OK so I am a huge Jennifer lopez fan HUGE FAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I saw the pilot and I was thinking hmmmmmmm I don't know about this show but now after watching the third episode this show is really picking up!!!!!!! I think her acting is really great and the story line is catchy and the rest cast is great ray liotta drea de Matteo they really add to the show ! Jennifer lopez is so easy on the eyes so it is definitely easier to watch this show. But being a huge fan of crime dramas this one is picking up and keeping my interest and lets just all watch it unfold ! The storyline is great with Jennifer lopez being a single mom who loves her daughter more than anything. Her challenges as a mom and a loyal cop to her team and the twists are interesting . So give it a shot first couple of episodes you May be surprised :)
As Convincing As A Giraffe Reciting Shakespeare
*** SPOILER ALERT *** What were the writers, producers, and anyone else connected with this abysmal (and I'm using a mild adjective) thinking - or no ...
*** SPOILER ALERT *** What were the writers, producers, and anyone else connected with this abysmal (and I'm using a mild adjective) thinking - or not thinking? Not one character you could even vaguely care about, a plot so thin you'd be called naked if you wore it and a script that would shame an elementary school play. TV shows that show great promise such as 'Forever' and 'Almost Human' are taken off after one season and trash like this is aired? Unbelievable: and the same word serves as an excellent description of this entire travesty of a TV show. It's said that it 'takes all kinds' to 'satisfy all kinds' but I for one could not even begin to imagine which 'all kind' of viewer this show would satisfy. How the show gets a rating above 1 confounds me.
Pretty Lame So Far..
I tried to keep an open mind as the first episode churned on. After the second, a few things became clear. The show could still improve, but here is ...
I tried to keep an open mind as the first episode churned on. After the second, a few things became clear. The show could still improve, but here is what bothers me so far...1. Jennifer Lopez. There's just too much of her. She's emoting in almost every scene, overdoing every time. Less would help the show.2. The morality. We're apparently supposed to sympathize with her character because...? She and her pals are dirty cops who collect protection money from local businesses, she covered up a shooting by a cop of an unarmed man, and she might also be a murderer herself. Then again, her daughter does play the cello. They're basically gang members with badges, and their concern about keeping the neighborhood safe rings hollow. The Sopranos and The Shield had moral problems too, but at least the morally bankrupt main characters were more interesting, and their adversaries weren't always in law enforcement. You wanted those villains to prevail against even worse villains. Here, it would just be a relief if all these bad cops went to jail, now. Though there are those cello lessons to pay for.3. The clichés. As in The Sopranos, The Shield and some other shows, the FBI agents are a bunch of stereotypical squares who wear bad suits, have conservative haircuts, and deserve to lose. If this show were canceled, would I go to Hulu or elsewhere to track down the un-aired episodes?. Answer: No. I really don't care what happens to any of these people.
Just a notch above hideous
I gave it 2 stars because I didn't think JLo was as bad as other users did.After all, she had so little to work with: Cop shoots unarmed man, so her ...
I gave it 2 stars because I didn't think JLo was as bad as other users did.After all, she had so little to work with: Cop shoots unarmed man, so her first thought is to stage a fake scenario? Implausible, not because it never happens, but because she does it for a rookie she doesn't really even know.This script is both a clichéd and utterly depressing, served up to us with god-awful acting mostly from Ray Liotta reprising his role from....well , everything he's done for the last several years. Mobster or cop it's the same guy. As my ex-wife (a casting director) would say, "Could you act a little harder, Ray?" Even the good guy, played by Warren Kole is uninspiring.Barry Levinson has produced some quality television in the past, but this thing is a mess.
Excellent show - Liotta and Lopez are riveting
I have watched the first two episodes of Shades of Blue and am completely hooked. It's dark, edgy and tense, filled with complex characters, each wit ...
I have watched the first two episodes of Shades of Blue and am completely hooked. It's dark, edgy and tense, filled with complex characters, each with their own secrets and loyalties. Jennifer Lopez owns her role as Harlee Santos, a tough female cop who is also a devoted single mother to her 16 year old daughter, Christina. Ray Liotta is her long-time boss and father figure, Matt Wozniak. Matt is her Lieutenant and he, along with the rest of their unit are her family. Their unit is incredibly successful, but does not hesitate to cross the lines when it comes to justice and self-interest...loyalty is the name of the game and they stick together, no matter what. Matt is the kind of cop and man who is always able to do what is necessary to survive and protect those he cares about - the end will always justify the means. In the Pilot (which I watched twice), one of the unit members is entrapped by the FBI and faces some very tough choices that instantly change their life. The second episode is even better, but I don't want to give any more away - just watch it and don't listen to the negative reviews. If you liked the Sopranos, NYPD Blue or currently are a fan of Chicago PD, you will love this. My test of a good show is that I'm sorry when the credits are rolling - that's how I felt when each episode of Shades of Blue ended.I can't wait until next week!
This is just awful. Avoid it!
If i could give this a 0 I would.The description makes it sound bad, but bad is not an awful enough word to describe exactly how rubbish this show is ...
If i could give this a 0 I would.The description makes it sound bad, but bad is not an awful enough word to describe exactly how rubbish this show is. jlo is like watching wood. She is also the worst cop i have ever seen on TV. Mostly she is relying on her jiggly old boobs to get her through. The script is stock, I don't care what happens to any of the characters. The only small saving grace is seeing Ray Liota back on the screen. Shame he chose this pile of poo to do it. I wish i could unwatch this pile of garbage. I hope the network cancels this now before it contributes to s further dumbing down of the TV industry. Do yourself a favour and block this so you can never accidentally switch it on!
Gray to Black Shades of Blue
NBC's "Shades of Blue" -- For me, given the ever growing media-fed distrust, disrespect and outright hostility directed toward law enforcement across ...
NBC's "Shades of Blue" -- For me, given the ever growing media-fed distrust, disrespect and outright hostility directed toward law enforcement across the country, does Hollywood really think we need a weekly prime-time show about crooked cops .... touting the ends justify the means? We already have enough of it in Chicago PD and others, but it is at least balanced out among the characters and overall storyline. Not so with Shades of Blue! Aside from the anything-but-original story structure of this pilot episode, both Ray Liotta and Jennfer Lopez are terrific actors and deserve better. I like good crime dramas -- but this JUNK is the kind of thing to fuel an already lit fire! Our men, women & K9's "in BLUE" are already targets. I'll stick with Blue Bloods, not gonna waste the electricity on Gray to Black Shades of Blue!
Don't waste your time!!!
Wish they had a 0. People who want to watch Lopez on any screen will certainly tune in, but this is by far the worst police drama my husband and I ev ...
Wish they had a 0. People who want to watch Lopez on any screen will certainly tune in, but this is by far the worst police drama my husband and I ever watched. Why do they need to paint such a terrible picture of officers. If you believe this drama, everyone is dirty... on the take.... inept... and a maniac!! Someone somewhere thought they could sell more advertising time by combining a popular female artist, and perverse police officers. There were no redeeming qualities, and the hardest part of watching such a terrible program, was needing to fill 10 lines of comment on it. Not sure why they require lengthy conversations. Sometimes, just saying "we didn't like it" should be enough.
Better than i expected
OK, so i can see how the other reviews are so harsh. Im Puerto Rican from new york. I have never been a fan of Jennifer Lopez, but this was good. The ...
OK, so i can see how the other reviews are so harsh. Im Puerto Rican from new york. I have never been a fan of Jennifer Lopez, but this was good. The reason i think is good has nothing to do with continuity. Yes there was gaps , yes 3 min in we saw horrible police work. Yes clichés are every were. But if u are from NYC and u know these type of people in real life then ,you can relate. Give it a chance , and if ur not from NY, take time to enjoy the environment that these great producers have bestowed on us. Jennifer is a beautiful woman who allows the perpetuation of NY city cops and being Latino to be instilled in the viewer. Qnd also ray Liotta is a gem. Goodfellas any one? All in all I'm interested in knowing where this goes. 7 our of ten .
Good Crooked Police Drama
10 January 2016 I just watched the pilot of episode of "Shades of Blue". I like it, but I am very surprise to see beautiful, sexy and talented movie ...
10 January 2016 I just watched the pilot of episode of "Shades of Blue". I like it, but I am very surprise to see beautiful, sexy and talented movie star, Jennifer Lopez in a television series. There are a few actresses that are naturally sexy, no acting sexy and Jennifer Lopez, Megan Good, Gal Gadot, Gugu M. Raw and Susan Sarandon are a few of them. They can be dressed in an old winter coat from head to toe and they have sex appeal.Jenny has not been on television since Keenan I.Wayans gave Jenny her big break in his comedy series, "In Living Color" which also made a movie star of Jim Carey. I am also surprise to see talented movie star, Ray Liotta on a t.v series, but I guess working on t.v is better than not working, if movie roles are not coming in.This series has the potential to become a long running series and I hope that it last past the first season. The acting from Ray is great, Jenny is not bad in her role either. I was not to impress with the rookie detective, Dayo. I liked the FBI agent who forces Jenny's character to become an in house snitch on her own team.This show is like real life on some police forces. It gives good honest police a bad name. My life long friend, Dwaine C that I grew up with in Denver has been a deputy police now over 20 years. He is a good honest cop who does things by the law and he is a Christian, so he is convicted to do what is right by God's law and the man's law.Anyhoo, I did find it hard to believe that a veteran would shoot her rookie partner, regardless of using a vest or not and then play it off like it's not a big deal, all in a day's work. I don't think so. Ray's dirty cop catching a bad guy and taking him to gang members to either kill him or turn the guy into a FUBAR. To high of a risk of him being caught by someone turning on Ray's character.Next up, a good mother or father with good kids will do almost anything to help their kids and that is what Jenny's character does by putting her own life at risk by ramming her daughter's car three times into a brick blockade to cover up a lie she told to her boss, Ray's character. Well one lie leads to the next lie and it's all down hill from there, telling so many lies, it's hard to keep track or know when the truth is being told.This is one of the things I admire about my daughter, Gaby Giselle, who is such a strong Christian and believer in God and Jesus Christ/Yeshua that she will Not lie, not even to save her own mother or father because she is concerned what God thinks and not what people think. However, that is Not the case in this show or most people in real life. Most people will tell a little white lie to save a close friend and for sure a good family member.A whole team of dirty cops, no there is always one or two on the team who want to and will do the right thing without being forced. There is always someone with integrity who will shine a light in a dark place.Overall, not a bad show, I will continue to watch it to see how long it last. I give it an 8 on the scale of 1~10.
I wonder if these high reviews are b/c its Jennifer Lopez...
I am amazed someone of Ray Liotta standard decided to accept a contract for this pitiful show.I wonder if this movie is trying to gain profit through ...
I am amazed someone of Ray Liotta standard decided to accept a contract for this pitiful show.I wonder if this movie is trying to gain profit through Lopez's cleavage... Repeatedly wearing low-cut dresses...unnecessary While at the same time building sympathy for being a single-parent. As stated in the previous reviews, I just want to emphasize how pitiful this show is.---------warning SPOILER--FOR FIRST EPISODE -- ------------------- After 33 minutes Jenny deliberately crashes her car - to cover up a lie she told earlier about the car being in a crash. Unfortunately she survives. - After 34 minutes, Ray drinks and drives on the job. Because being a corrupt cop isn't enough of a cliché. he has to be an alcoholic too. - After 36 minutes Ray hands over one bad guy to other bad guys to kill him. Vic Mackey policing chapter 2. This show has no originality and zero potential. Stay away.
Horribly cliché
I was super excited to see j lo and Ray Liotta cast in a prime time show, so I tuned in with high expectations. Oh boy was I wrong. What a snooze fes ...
I was super excited to see j lo and Ray Liotta cast in a prime time show, so I tuned in with high expectations. Oh boy was I wrong. What a snooze fest. What a horribly predictable snooze fest. I was able to to foretell pretty much everything in this thin ass show before it happened. J lo is not convincing at all as a cop. Far less a seasoned corrupt cop. Ray Liotta fared better but try as me might he did not exude bad cop. The cast was a little off too. The woman cast to play j lo's daughter looked like something Frankenstein stitched together. I couldn't relate to and of the cast and sure as heck was not rooting for anyone. I actually encourage everyone to watch this mess of a show so they can see how horrible it is. I don't see this show lasting for more than 6 episodes.
The execution can be sketchy and cliché, but its core characters and cast seem to hold up decently.
Jennifer Lopez is really donning the moniker "Jenny from the Block". Her acting works have gained mixed reception and Shades of Blue will continue th ...
Jennifer Lopez is really donning the moniker "Jenny from the Block". Her acting works have gained mixed reception and Shades of Blue will continue that tradition. The leading actors give a presentable performance and the drama appears to be in working shape, however some of the police works are following frigid formula of crime drama, not to mention a couple of angles are shady and unconvincing.Female leads in cop series admittedly look like models, for example leads of Castle or Quantico, which is not entirely a bad and might even be appealing, but it doesn't enhance the reliability aspect of the series. What Jennifer brings is the occasional moments where her character is approachable. At these times she can shed the celebrity persona and delves into the character, although there's still inconsistency in this regard.Harlee Santos (Jennifer Lopez) is a single mother and corrupt cop who is also being chased by FBI. The character can be appealing as the movie plays out the family and camaraderie cards, but it often transitions into intentionally excessively independent woman stereotype or simply become too melodramatic. Fortunately, the supporting cast helps alleviate these few sloppy instances.Ray Liotta as Wozniak, the patriarch in the police squad, this is a role he's comfortable with. He plays the crude mentor and protector who harbor secret vices presentably well. Warren Kole as Stahl, the FBI agent is charming in creepy kind of way. There's a solid foundation for character development here, although it's not without a lingering inkling that these are crime drama clichés. Furthermore, this translates into some of the police works that just look too outlandishly crafted.The premise holds together sufficiently, "Shades of Blue" has a decent start and relatively suspenseful set-up. If it follows these core directions instead of trails from other shows, it should find some degree of success.
Baddddddddddddd!!!
Somebody call the cops....I think the good reviews on this show are from people smokin' some heavy duty crack...or interns for the show ordered to. I ...
Somebody call the cops....I think the good reviews on this show are from people smokin' some heavy duty crack...or interns for the show ordered to. I like Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta but the story line is so cliché and phony. Can't believe they signed on for this. First off, she fixes a bad drug bust and shoots her partner like it was no big deal. Totally unbelievable. I guess because of the heavy hitting stars in the show they expect us to swallow this drivel. IMHO, skip it and watch something worthwhile. I guess they are trying to copy HBO with a compelling series but they need a believable, well-written story with some interesting characters besides centering everything around J Lo to do that.
So far it is surprisingly good. And that I am not the biggest J-Lo fan. But hopefully it will get good with the episodes of the pilot.J-Lo is a corru ...
So far it is surprisingly good. And that I am not the biggest J-Lo fan. But hopefully it will get good with the episodes of the pilot.J-Lo is a corrupt and conflicted police officer who has a corrupt bunch of police colleagues, led by Ray Liotta the LT who does everything and anything to break the rules to protect his colleagues and enforce the law his own way, the wrong way.When J-Lo's character Harlee is caught by FBI agent Warren Kole, she is forced into becoming an informant. To have the FBI taken down Liotta and his crew. As Kole's character may also be developing a crush on her along the way. Kole uses J-Lo's gifted daughter a musician against her for testifying and getting immunity. As she is caught between Kole and Liotta, the man she considers a friend and a mentor.As Liotta who is so desperate to get the mole out. As Kole really has put J-Lo in such a dangerous situation. It is really good but hopefully it will continue.
Shades of becoming a very good crime/drama television series
This is an initial review after watching the pilot episode.As momma always said,... when you tell the truth you can always repeat the same story sinc ...
This is an initial review after watching the pilot episode.As momma always said,... when you tell the truth you can always repeat the same story since you don't have to remember any of the lies you may have otherwise told. In Shades of Blue you have an entire team of a police division involved in police corruption. The two lead characters on this corrupt police team are Harlee Santos played by super star Jennifer Lopez. Harlee plays a veteran cop who is also a single mom raising her 16 year old daughter. Her daughter Cristina Santos (played by Sarah Jeffery) who is a cellist prodigy requires a substantial financial contribution to enrol in a private school for music prodigies. This is the main reason that mom and police woman Harlee Santos is part of a corrupt team of police officers. The team leader is Detective Matt Wozniak, played superbly by the legendary crime genre star Ray Liotta. Ray Liotta is one of my guaranteed good performance actors. Just think of the starring role he had in the crime films Goodfellas, Identity, Cop Land and/or Narc which were all good performances by Ray.With only the first episode televised at the time of my review it is a tad bit early to tell how the main characters roles will evolve, and if the television series writers will lean more in developing the main characters in the direction of a television crime series like The Shield, or more in mind with the strategic crime series and multiple Emmy winning series The Wire.I will say though the director of the pilot series is the seasoned director and producer Barry Levinson who has ensured we understand that Harlee Santos is a very busy cop and mom. Within the first 60 minutes in no particular order, we witness Harlee run down and handcuff single handedly a very quick and agile street thug, set up an alibi for a rookie cop who kills a low life drug dealer without thinking first, deliberately smash her daughters car up to back up an alibi she created (remember what momma said about lies versus telling the truth?) earlier with Detective Matt Wozniak, gets caught by the FBI trying to take a bribe form a bookie (who is an FBI agent) and Harlee still finds time to work out in a boxing gym both in and out of the ring with her boy toy (no surprise here) trainer boyfriend. Whewww, Harlee accomplished all that in less than 60 minutes.So now we see we have a team of corrupt cops trying to do their job of protecting the good citizens of New York City and at the same time make a few bucks off the backs of the bad guys by skimming a little kick back in protection money. We have the FBI closing in on this team of corrupt cops who are now under surveillance, and we have the corrupt team leader Matt Wozniak trying to figure out who the snitch is in his own unit before the FBI can close in on them all and break up this happy little family of close knit corrupt cops.There is a lot going on in Shades Of Blue and I remain optimistic with this stellar cast of Grade 1 movie and television stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Ray Liotta, Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos), Warren Kole and Lolita Davidovich the series will have a strong first season performance. Mrs Shullivan and I were impressed with the pilot episode. So far I will give the series a positive 9 out of 10 rating for the stellar cast, and the excellent directing and cinematography of the series pilot.
I will try it again to see if it gets better
Not what I really expected or wanted from another cop show. We have all been spoiled by Dick Wolfe with CSI and all his stuff. I don't liven NYC but ...
Not what I really expected or wanted from another cop show. We have all been spoiled by Dick Wolfe with CSI and all his stuff. I don't liven NYC but have been there a few times and from I know it not like what is shown. A lot of silly one liners and ridiculous gunshots to cover themselves that could have waited more than the first ten minutes. I will try a few more episodes before I trash the scheduled recording of it. Oh I will add, I will never watch anything that hasn't been DVR'ed. Commercials are a waste of my time and when I need to skip something, I do.
Give this a chance - it's not just another cop show
Jennifer Lopez plays a complicated NYPD cop - crooked for financial reasons (with kind of a justification) but not so bad that sympathies aren't with ...
Jennifer Lopez plays a complicated NYPD cop - crooked for financial reasons (with kind of a justification) but not so bad that sympathies aren't with her. She shows her tough side, has a toy boy, faces loyalty tests, is caught between a rock and a hard place to betray or not to betray, the list goes on. This is no Law and Order or CSI - it's more character based than the crimes themselves.A good and convincing supporting cast that looks authentic ensures this is not a diva show case. Ray Liotta and Drea de Matteo are as authentic NYPD looking as you can get.It's only 13 episodes a season so things will be succinct. Give it a chance you won't regret it.
Shades of Blue Review
'Shades of Blue' is a good 8/10... lacks more action sequences... a bit too many dramatic drag-on scenes... more production/scripting of action seque ...
'Shades of Blue' is a good 8/10... lacks more action sequences... a bit too many dramatic drag-on scenes... more production/scripting of action sequences and this show will become the next big TV Series hit since NYPD Blue era... great selection of cast members Lopez and Liotta... that natural feel of New York and the people that portray the characters... bring in more people not just celebrities.. real people out there that are not actors or actresses are the real celebrities as it gives a sense of realness... capture the viewers with attention with cliff hanger endings to want to watch the next new episode... overall, if the producers combine all these above ingredients to make a hit show, then this show will have its time in TV history like many other popular shows already out there now and in the past...
A Good Start For "Shades of Blue"
Jennifer Lopez plays Harlee Santos, a police woman who cares about justice, her teenage daughter, and the officers on her team. She describes them as ...
Jennifer Lopez plays Harlee Santos, a police woman who cares about justice, her teenage daughter, and the officers on her team. She describes them as a "family". It's a close family, bound by trust. They have each others' backs when an operation goes bad. And they rely upon each other to keep the secrets they share.The team, which is lead by Matt Wozniak (Ray Liotta), operates on the premise that the "ends justify the means." Of course the law doesn't operate that way. It depends upon legal procedures, i.e. procedures which are legal.The result is a complex character. Harlee is a devoted mother and she really cares about reducing crime. As citizens, viewers must decide how they feel about a woman who is paid to enforce laws yet routinely violates them. Especially in a time when the term "hero" is so easily attached to first responders, this is a challenging premise.The good news is that Jennifer Lopez is up to it. Within the first hour, she is asked to be motherly, athletic, sexy, confident, and emotionally torn. She handles the role easily and provides a central core for the series.As she begins to realize the destructive consequences of a web of lies, she will have to sacrifice her inner peace and maybe everything she values. It is the writing that will make this show or break it. These characters deserve emotional honesty and depth. It's worth watching to see what follows.I do have one complaint about the pilot. At one point, Harlee fires a shot through a door with no regard for what's on the other side. That feels contrary to her nature.
Don'e Be A Single Parent
We saw this series just recently titled Public Morals, so this isn't new it just stars Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta instead of Edward Burns and Mich ...
We saw this series just recently titled Public Morals, so this isn't new it just stars Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta instead of Edward Burns and Michael Rapaport. Public Morals got canceled but Shades of Blue has Lopez so we will have to see if the public will watch to see her. No complaints about the acting here--everyone is top notch--and the action is gritty enough such that you felt you need to brush your teeth after the first episode was over. But we have seen this before and do we need another series that suggests the police are corrupt and we need the FBI to plant a mole. So will we watch to see will Liotta, Matt Wozniak, figure out it's Lopez, Harlee Santos; and how many people will be mistakenly taken out before only Lopez is left.
tries to be The Shield, fails.
it's hard to say what's worse, the casting of Jenny Lopez in the lead or the terrible script. jenny? seriously? This show desperately wants to be The ...
it's hard to say what's worse, the casting of Jenny Lopez in the lead or the terrible script. jenny? seriously? This show desperately wants to be The Shield, but instead of developing characters and a story over a season, Jenny and Ray break world records for most crimes committed by TV police officers in a single episode. Lets recap the first episode: 1. 3 minutes in Jenny fakes a crime scene to make a bad shoot look good (her partner thinks an xbox controller looks like a gun and so shoots someone dead. sure why not. sounds plausible)2. After 9 minutes in Jenny and her cop buddies share cash they have shaken down/stolen from other bad guys (just in case you didn't realise this is a show about corrupt cops at the 3 minute mark)3. After 20 minutes in Ray makes deal with drug dealer, then beats him up. Vic Mackey policing chapter 1. 4. After 22 minutes Jenny tries to shakedown a bookie for cash. Oops, too bad he's under cover FBI. busted. worst corrupt cop ever. Couldn't even last 23 minutes. 5. After 30 minutes in Ray and Jenny run down a suspect with their car. He gets up and starts running....but 48 year old Jenny manages to run faster in heels and tackles him for the arrest. Girl Power!6. After 33 minutes Jenny deliberately crashes her car - to cover up a lie she told earlier about the car being in a crash. Unfortunately she survives. 7. After 34 minutes, Ray drinks and drives on the job. Because being a corrupt cop isn't enough of a cliché. he has to be an alcoholic too. 8. After 36 minutes Ray hands over one bad guy to other bad guys to kill him. Vic Mackey policing chapter 2. This show has no originality and zero potential. Stay away.


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27-07-2021 | By Carolina Schmidt
London-born and Berlin-based emerging actor Langston Uibel has gained the attention of the film world through his roles in Dogs of Berlin, the Emmy-winning series Unorthodox, and more. As he stars as one of the new main characters in the upcoming third season of the Netflix series How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast), Langston talks to ΠMagazine about how real people inspire his acting, what changes he wishes to see in the film industry and his favorite fashion item.
How did shooting How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) compare with your previous experiences?
The main difference was that the whole team was quite young and for some reason I feel like we had a different approach than the usual German productions. It was a nice experience! Also, shooting in summer is always nice. We were in nature, so that was amazing.
Is there a specific technique you approach your roles with?
I tend to create my characters with the help of people that I have experienced. I just take bits and pieces from the different characters that I have witnessed in my personal life and build the character from that. When I come into a situation, I am always quite conscious of what's happening. That's where I learn. I really love to observe or be part of very specific situations because that's where you get introduced to a new type of person which is always quite inspiring for any part you can play.
What change do you wish to see in the film industry?
I always think it's about opportunity. Everyone should have the opportunity to work in any kind of job they would like. There are so many factors – sex, race, social class- that influence that opportunity; as well as how much money you have growing up and what kind of education your parents had. And that goes for any profession, it's not only film. Everybody should have the chance to know about all the things that are out there. Obviously this is an utopia, but anything closer to that utopia would mean progress.
The topic of representation has finally received more attention in recent years.
That's true. I still have to get used to other people constantly talking about your skin color. It's weird growing up and no one is really acknowledging or recognizing what it means to be black. And then, in the recent months everybody keeps bringing up topics like diversity and representation, as soon as you enter the room.
There's lots of noise.
Definitely. We can't forget there's two layers to the solution. One is talking and raising awareness but I think a lot of it is online talk and it disguises the fact that actual physical change doesn't really happen. I witness a lot of performative talk. We definitely have to be aware that we have to actually change things in real life. And that's definitely a bigger challenge than talking about it.
Any advice to your younger self who hasn't entered the film business yet?
I probably wouldn't do it again (laughs). What advice I would give myself ? There is not much you can control. There are not many opportunities and chances that you get but when you do, you have to seize them and make the best out of it. It's not always about how good anybody is. There are so many different factors like luck, looks, definitely also talent, but also being at the right place at the right time. It's just very interesting how there are a few people who have a lot of power in the film industry and you have to be aware of that.
Where do you get your fashion inspiration from?
My father has been a person whose style I've always really liked. Otherwise definitely my family and friends and the internet.
And the streets of Berlin?
The streets of Berlin – not really. Maybe the streets of London or New York but not the streets of Berlin.
Your favorite fashion item?
My toothbrush.
The third season of How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) premiers on Netflix today, July 27th.
With very special thanks to the team over at PLATTE Berlin, a new, interdisciplinary home to Berlin's fashion- and art related projects, who kindly provided us with their studio spaces! Langston got entirely styled in Berlin designers for this occasion.
Talent – Langston Uibel at ZTA Management
Photography — Kaj Lehner
Styling & Direction — Hanna Schmidt
Make up and Hair — Haneen Ajub
Set Design — Jillian van Koutrik
Photography Assistant – Bayi Amoussou
Interview – Carolina Schmidt
Location — Platte Berlin
in: Editorials, Features, Interviews
tags: 032c, actor, Anne Isabella, Berlin Fashion, Christopher Paepke, Film, HALO Labels, Hien Le, Interview, Ivanman, Langston Uibel, Mies Nobis, Mykita, Netflix, Œditorial, PLATTE.Berlin, PLATTE.Studio, Schuhkonzept, Soji Solarin, Tim Luis Shoemaker, Zeha Berlin, ZTA Management
DASH Magazine's Editor-in-Chief NoéMie Schwaller's Seasonal Lust
Every Girl
Designer Timm Süssbrich of Barre Noire
Lil Escapes in the City

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you're waiting for a Haswell-powered MacBook Pro with Retina display, you may have longer to wait than previously expected, according to new reports.
China Times claims that MacBook Pro models featuring Intel's new Haswell processors are on their way, but won't ship until October.
Previous reports had suggested a September launch for the new models, and the launch of Haswell-powered MacBook Air models in June led to speculation that new MacBook Pro models wouldn't be far behind. (See MacBook Air (2013) review).
It's expected that the new MacBook Pro models will sell at the same price as the current Retina MacBook Pros, because, while the cost of the high-resolution LCD panels and solid-state drives has decreased, the cost of DRAM is on the rise.
Thanks to Intel's new Haswell processors, the new MacBook Pro with Retina display models could have a significantly better battery life than current models.


text:
HYLE--International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2019), pp. 49-70.
http://www.hyle.org
Copyright © 2019 by HYLE and Conal Boyce
Mendeleev's Elemental Ontology and Its Philosophical Renditions in German and English
Conal Boyce*
Abstract: We contrast two facets of elemental ontology, one so straightforward that it can be taught as the adjunct to a grade-school chemistry demonstration, the other involving eight decades of discourse at the graduate-school level. To explore the latter, we begin by critiquing the Lavoisier/Mendeleev relation as presented by Fritz Paneth in 1931 in German. Following the 2003 reissue of Paneth 1962 (an English translation), one observes a gradual shift such that Paneth seems the source of the substance/element distinction that was drawn by Mendeleev in 1869. Eventually, in 2009, a certain wheel is reinvented: Mendeleev's. We advocate that the focus be returned, overtly, to Mendeleev, and to two of his words in particular, substance (веществo) and element (элемент). When suitably framed, those two words alone capture the essence of his elemental ontology.
Keywords: Mendeleev, elemental ontology, abstract element, basic substance, Grundstoff.
The name Mendeleev is associated mainly with the periodic system, the more so in this International Year of the Periodic Table which marks the sesquicentennial of his first draft, dated 1869. In this article we focus on a different aspect of Mendeleev's thinking, one which is not widely appreciated: his elemental ontology, likewise of 1869 vintage. As prelude to Mendeleev's text, we begin Section 2 by looking at mercury (II) oxide formation and dissociation, not with reference to oxygen theory but from a naïve, grade-school perspective[1] wherein the 'disappearance' of Hg into HgO, and the subsequent 'recovery' of Hg metal, have the potential to suggest, already, a sustance/element/substance paradigm which is essentially that of Mendeleev.
In Section 3, we look at certain problems that arise when translating Mendeleev's Russian. Some of these difficulties are inherent in the context of French, German, and English vocabulary as it changed over the centuries; others are specific to the Russian text itself. In particular, Mendeleev's nonstandard use of the phrase 'concept of X' has caused trouble from the beginning, only to be exacerbated by Paneth's nonstandard use, in 1931, of the corresponding phrase in German.
In Section 4, the scope broadens as we turn from translation issues to those of interpretation – and, oddly enough, to something like an attribution or 'priority' issue, if you like, regarding the very idea of the transcendental element itself. Through no fault of his own, Paneth has come gradually – over the period 1931-2014 and beyond – to be seen as the one who first drew the crucial distinction between concrete substances and abstract elements, not the one who sought only to interpret and promote that distinction of Mendeleev's by correcting his 'inapt' terminology. A major facilitator of the gradual shift in attribution was the 2003 reprint of H. Paneth's 1962 translation of F. Paneth (1931), which Scerri then alludes to via the term 'basic substance' found on many pages of his influential 2007 book.[2] This is not to say that Scerri neglects to mention the red mercury oxide passage in Mendeleev, which is central to this article, but the way he introduces it is problematic.[3] Evidence of the 'attribution drift' that I posit can be seen in Earley 2009, Ruthenberg 2009, and Mahootian 2013. In the three corresponding abstracts, Aristotle and Kant are mentioned in connection with Paneth's metaphysical element, but Mendeleev is not mentioned. Similarly, in van Brakel 2014, while Mendeleev's name appears once on p. 14 – where it is folded in with those of Crick, Pasteur, Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus – it is Paneth alone who is given credit on p. 26 for a "proposal to distinguish basic and simple substances", which is to say in plainer language, elements and elemental substances.
We advocate that Mendeleev's red mercury oxide passage be recognized as the source of the proposal that is nowadays so often attributed to Paneth, and that Paneth's terms 'simple substance' and 'basic substance' be reassessed against the backdrop of Mendeleev's straightforward terms 'substance' and 'element' which are ancestral to them.
Time out to explain my convention for referencing certain works of Friedrich Adolf Paneth (1887-1958) and his translators. By 'Paneth 1931', I refer to pages in a paper based on the lecture he delivered in 1931, known as the Königsberg lecture. Paneth 1962[1931] is the lecture's translation from German to English which was done by Heinz Paneth, his son, who is known also by his anglicized name, Heinz Post. Paneth 2003[1962] is the reprint of Paneth 1962; whenever I quote from the English translation, my page references are to this 2003 reprint. Paneth 1964[1936] is the translation into English of Paneth's 1936 Leningrad article; in this instance, the translator is Eva Paneth, his daughter. For historical context, see the biographical sketch of Paneth by Ruthenberg (1997).
2. Two Preliminary Approaches to the Terms 'Substance' and 'Element'
Upon entering a classroom, suppose the students see, on the whiteboard, a simplified version of this: 2Hg(l) + O2(g) ↔ 2HgO(s). Let us say that these are middle-school or high-school students, to put it in U.S. parlance. Accordingly, the instructor has written the reaction(s) in the most rudimentary form, Hg + O  HgO  Hg + O, with state symbols and stoichiometric coefficients deferred for another day. Whether intended or not, a benefit of this minimalist approach is that it presents an opportunity for noticing the interplay of Hg as a substance versus Hg as an element – an aspect that would otherwise be lost to concerns about time limitations or information overload (see Figure 1).
mercury as a liquid metal
mercury as an abstract
Hg + O
(reddish
powder)
Figure 1: Illustrating mercury as a substance and as an element. For our hyppthetical grade-school demonstration, we show a simplified formula to be supplemented later in the school year by the formal equation 2Hg(l) + O2(g) ↔ 2HgO(s).
Our hypothetical instructor covers the formation step verbally, by a quick retelling of the Twelve Days Experiment (Lavoisier 1789, pp. 35-36). To illustrate the dissociation step, she heats a quantity of HgO in a test tube. To emphasize the interplay of substance and element, she points out the round-tripping aspect whereby a liquid metal has, in a manner of speaking persisted, "after going into the reddish-orange HgO powder and coming back out of it" to regain its original form and characteristics. By the end of this one short demonstration, the instructor has conveyed, at least to some members of her class, exactly what Mendeleev intended to convey about 'substances' (веществa) and 'elements' (элементы) in the Preface to his Principles of Chemistry in 1869. Namely, that standing just 'behind' or 'beneath' the substances in test tubes exists a foundational realm of the abstract transcendental[4] element.
Or, in his own words, wherein he too uses HgO to illustrate the distinction:
1 В этом отношении полезно сделать ясное различие между понятием о
2 простом теле, как об отдельном однородном веществе, и о нем же, как о
3 вещественной части или элементе сложных веществ [...]
4 В красной ртутной окиси содержится не два простых тела – металл и газ, а два
5 элемента: ртуть и кислород, дающих в отдельности металл и кислородный газ.
6 Не ртуть, как металл, и не кислород в своем газообразном виде содержатся в красной ртутной окиси:
7 в ней содержится только вещество этих простых тел, как в водяном паре содержится
8 только вещество льда, но не самый лед, или как в хлебе содержится вещество зерна,
9 но не самое зерно. [Mendeleev 1947(1869), p. 15]
1 In that respect it is useful to make a clear distinction between the concept of
2 simple body as a separate homogeneous substance and as
3 the material part or element of complex substances [compounds] [...]
4 Red mercury oxide does not contain two simple bodies – a metal and a gas, but two
5 elements: mercury and oxygen, which in their separate [states] are a metal and oxygen gas.
6 Neither mercury, as a metal, nor oxygen in its gaseous state is contained in red mercury oxide:
7 In [the HgO] is contained only the substance of these simple bodies, just as water vapor
8 contains only the substance of ice, not ice itself, or as bread contains the substance of grain,
9 but not grain itself. [English translation by V. Tsimmerman, edited by CB]
Let's call this the 'red mercury oxide passage'. In it, all italicization is original. When unitalicized, веществе is веществе (substance); элементе is элементе (element); and вещественной части is вещественной части (see discussion below). Colored font and line numbering have been added to facilitate parallel reading.
Is the passage difficult? Yes and no. By way of Figure 1, we have seen already how the words 'substance' and 'element', which occur in lines 2 and 3 above, possess the potential for conveying the whole message. The trouble comes with the half-dozen auxililary terms that accompany them, especially the one that Mendeleev uses just ahead of them as his point of departure: 'simple body' (простом теле). When considered across diverse linguistic borders down the ages, the term 'simple body' is found to possess a number of meanings, and with them the likelihood of muddying the substance/element contrast. This problem is compounded by Mendeleev's nonstandard use of the concept-of-X construction, as mentioned earlier. Yet another trouble spot is вещественной части ('material part' or 'substantial part', line 3). That term is, in my opinion, a non sequitur that the reader should simply skip over. In 1891, it proved so distracting that it caused элемент, the most important word, to be lost in the shuffle, in both the German and English translations. This issue will be revisited in Figure 2.
There are two additional hurdles to mention. In line 4 we see this: "Red mercury oxide does not contain two simple bodies – a metal and a gas". That is another non sequitur, requiring us to read this in its stead: "Red mercury oxide does not contain two substances – a metal and a gas"; only then does the line accord with the key word 'substance' as introduced in line 2. Finally, there is a distinction to note regarding 'substance' in line 2 versus 'substance of ice' in line 8 (where the Russian genitive translated literally would be 'substance ice's'). By 'substance-of-X' what Mendeleev denotes is the chemical essence of X, which is to say the identity of X in terms of its abstract elemental makeup. In other words, the term 'substance' in the ice analogy points back to 'element' in line 3, not to 'substance' in line 2 as one might assume at first glance. The similarity of 'substance' in the substance/element distinction to 'substance of' in the ice and grain analogies is a red herring.
Before proceeding to Section 3, we should note that relative atomic mass was an important part of Mendeleev's formulation:[5] "Mendeleev's genius now lay in recognizing that just as it was the 'element' that survived intact in the course of compound formation, so atomic weight was the only quantity that survived in terms of measurable attributes" (Scerri 2007, p. 115).
3. On the Translation of Mendeleev's Russian into German and English
The most important phrase in the red mercury oxide passage can be distilled to the following ten-word essence:
различие между понятием о простом теле как веществе, как элементе
razlichiye mezhdu ponyatiyem o prostom tele kak veshchestve, kak elemente
the distinction between the concept of simple body as a substance, as an element
Reading between the lines, we deduce that Mendeleev intended the term 'simple body' to serve merely a vehicle for introducing his substance/element insight. However, reading those same lines objectively, we see that 'simple body' holds center stage while 'substance' and 'element' trail behind as 'kak'-constructions, in the form 'as X, as Y'. This overall structure of the phrase betrays a presumption of Mendeleev's that concepts are fissile. Oddly enough, this unusual and wholly insupportable notion that concepts are fissile is exhibited independently in Paneth 1931. Moreover, the context in which Paneth proposes that a certain concept be split is closely associated with his misreading of the German translation of the red mercury oxide passage. Accordingly, we shall shift our focus for a moment to Paneth, before continuing with an examination of 'simple body', a term that has potential, on its own, to sow confusion.
The term 'Elementbegriff' is featured in Paneth's 1931 title, and again in his heading for §5, which occupies pp. 116-121. In the lecture's title, the phrase 'Stellung des chemischen Elementbegriffs' may be translated as 'Status of the Concept of the Chemical Element', and in that case 'Elementbegriff' (the concept of element) presents no problem. But in the §5 heading we have this: 'Doppelte Bedeutung des chemischen Elementbegriffs' ('The Double Meaning of the Concept of Chemical Element'). Recall that Mendeleev wishes to break down a given concept, as X and as Y; similarly, Paneth here proposes the splitting of one Begriff (concept) into two Bedeutungen (meanings) to clarify its two Seiten (aspects).[6] Whereas, in normal usage, we expect the term 'concept' to be reserved for something final and unitary, not something fissile. After all, in any field of inquiry, reduction to a clear inventory of concepts is one of the main goals, so well understood that one might hesitate even to voice it as such. And if we do encounter something fissile, we would usually interpret it to be an overloaded term, readily resolved into more terms, not a concept in need of dissection.
To remind ourselves of what normal usage is, let us consider the section entitled 'The element concept' in van Spronsen 1969, pp. 11-13. There he covers the ancients in India, China, and Greece, up through the Arab alchemists and on to Prout. Through it all, never once does van Spronsen suggest a bifurcation of the 'element concept' itself, only its wide variation and growth across the centuries. That approach is echoed in the phrase 'verschiedene historische Stadien des Elementbegriffs' (different historical stages of the concept of element) in Schummer 1996, p. 16. And on pp. 101-165 of the latter volume, the concept of element – as Elementbegriff or Elementkonzeption – is traced across a similarly broad expanse of historical and philosophical contexts. There, quite appropriately, the term 'Umdeutung des Elementbegriffs' (reinterpretation of the concept of element) occurs several times, but one will search those pages in vain for a single case where anyone proposed breaking the concept itself into two parts. I supplement the earlier example with this German-language reference lest the Anglophone reader imagine that 'Begriff' might operate in some exotically different way than 'concept' does in English. It does not.[7]
When Paneth speaks of the 'concept of element' possessing 'two meanings', one might try to make sense of the phrase by interpreting it this way: Nowadays, the one term 'Element' is used to cover two concepts which need to be broken out and separated. The first concept is that of Grundstoff, the second that of einfacher Stoff. Alternatively, one might try reading the phrase literally but in that case it leads immediately to a philosophical objection. Thus, Schummer's remark that Paneth seems to have proposed eine ontologische Verdopplung der Elemente (an ontological doubling of elements; Schummer 1996 p. 234). This 'serious attack' on §5 of the Königsberg lecture is duly noted in Ruthenberg 2009, p. 88n11.
Having remarked on Mendeleev's concept-of-simple-body usage and on Paneth's similarly nonstandard concept-of-element usage, we return now, as promised, to the term 'simple body' itself:
Facet 1: 'Simple body' means element. In early writings, up to the time of Lavoisier, one often finds the term 'simple body' treated as a synonym for 'element'. E.g., "[S]imple bodies in the chemical sense are those which can be no further decomposed into unlike particles by chemical artifices; they are called by another name 'elements'" (Gmelin 1780, quoted in Paneth 2003[1962], p. 126).[8] While the French term 'substance simple' is prevalent in Lavoisier's Traité of 1789, it is worth noting that the term 'corps simple' ('simple body') also occurs there (Lavoisier 1789, pp. xviii, xxxiii, 1, 124, and 193). The latter instance occurs opposite the renowned Tableau des Substances Simples itself on p. 192. Finally, we note that in present-day dictionaries, 'corps simple' is glossed as 'element', although going the other way, English 'element' is defined as élément.
Facet 2: Russian and German conventions that throw us a curve. In the late eighteenth century, Lavoisier's 'substance simple' ('simple substance') was rendered into Russian not by простое вещество (prostoye veshchestvo, the term whose literal meaning is simple substance), rather by простое тело (prostoye telo, the literal meaning of which is simple body).[9] Meanwhile, what happens in German? In connection with Lavoisier, often we see the straightforward translation of 'substance simple' into 'einfacher Stoff' (e.g., in Paneth 1931, pp. 112-120, and Schummer 1996, pp. 134-135). Or, the term 'einfacher Körper' might be used (e.g., Kopp 1873, p. 209, or Röker 2017, p. 75, where 'einfacher Körper' and 'einfache Substanz' [simple substance] occur together on the same page, both in the context of Lavoisier's Traité). So, when Paneth refers to Mendeleev and his Begriff des einfachen Körpers (1931, p. 121), what exactly is the intent? Does it just mean 'simple body', in which case the whole story is told by 'concept of simple body' in Paneth 2003[1962], p. 133? Or, since F. Paneth is critiquing a Russian writer, might he have used 'simple body' the Russian way, to refer to Lavoisier's 'substance simple'? We shall revisit these questions in due course.
Facet 3: the 1899 /1869 discrepancy. Mendeleev's 1899 article appeared in French; an English translation of it is provided, for the first time, by Jensen (Mendeleev 2005, pp. 192-226). On p. 193, we find this: "The central idea that aided me [...] consists precisely in this absolute distinction between an atom and a simple body" (original emphasis). In Bent 2006 we find that passage repeated, with variations, as a kind of mantra on pp. 31, 78, 117, and 176-177. Was there a French/English translation problem? No. On p. 212 of the original Mendeleev 1899 article we find this phrase: "la distinction absolue entre atome et corps simple" (original italics); moreover, the two key terms are repeated on p. 213. So this is not a fluke, not a case of the French having been mistranslated to English. (Here we take on faith, since it probably cannot be investigated, that Cordillot made a reliable translation to French of Mendeleev's original draft in Russian; cf. Jensen in Mendeleev 2005, pp. 153, 158.) But how to reconcile the high profile of 'corps simple' in this context with простое тело ('simple body') in Mendeleev 1869, where 'simple body' served merely as the vehicle for introducing the main event, which was the substance/element (вещество/элемент) distinction? Could it really have been Mendeleev's intent to thus supplant his own earlier distinction, which was original and cogent, by language in which some would hear echoes of pre-Lavoisier times and others would hear a reference to nineteenth century atomic theory, in which he absolutely did not believe? Unfortunately, Jensen makes no comment on this curious development. Bent, for his part, accepts Mendeleev 1899 at face value (via Jensen, that is), in apparent innocence of the discrepancy – and perhaps even in ignorance of Mendeleev 1869? I have no resolution to propose; I merely note the problematic relation of Mendeleev 1899 to Mendeleev 1869.
We now review part of the red mercury oxide passage from a different perspective: its treatment in three published translations (see Figure 2).
Why did Kamensky render Mendeleev's 'simple body' (простом теле) as 'element'? To treat those two terms as interchangeable might suggest a classical, pre-Lavoisier orientation. However, since the context in question is Russian, and post-Lavoisier, we expect the term простом теле to denote Lavoisier's substance simple, as explained earlier. As I read it, простом теле is merely Medeleev's point of departure, on his way to the all-important substance/element distinction, by which he intends to breathe new life into French 'élément', German 'Element' and English 'element', along with Russian элемент itself. But neither of the 1891 translations allows this message to be conveyed.
Figure 2: Mendeleev's Russian mistranslated into German and into English
In the context of philosophy, there are those who would be careful to minimize or even exclude philological forays as being off-topic. For example, Ruthenberg (2009, p. 84) dismisses one of Earley's objections to H. Paneth's 'basic substance' as having 'a mere linguistic character'. Not by design, our review above of certain Russian translation problems carries with it the following subtext: One draws the philology/philosophy line too sharply at one's peril; in the absence of carefully defined words, how can one claim to be engaged in philosophy that deserves the time and attention of the listener?
The crucial word 'element' is missing at '[----------]' in all three of the published translations shown in Figure 2. Small wonder then that Mendeleev's elemental ontology was not immediately understood outside of Russia. And long before the 1891 translations, the waters had been muddied by the Beilstein incident as well. In an 1869 article in Zeitschrift für Chemie, Beilstein had rendered Mendeleev's phrase 'yavstvennuyu periodichnost´ svoystv'(which means 'distinct periodicity of properties', original emphasis) into German as stufenweise Abänderung in den Eigenschaften (which means 'gradual change in properties'). That error – involving the single word, 'periodichnost´' – led to ten years of strife between Mendeleev and Lothar Meyer over the priority question (see Gordin 2015, pp. 55-64, 345n12-n15). Gordin takes stufenweise to mean 'phased' rather than 'gradual' but the upshot is the same: The phrase 'distinct periodicity' is lost in the shuffle. Was Beilstein only harried and not paying attention, as suggested by Gordin? Was this yet another case of someone gratuitously 'interpreting' a word instead of simply translating it? Perhaps it is best to take the Beilstein incident as a cautionary tale about working 'at the edge' of any field, where the translator may be honestly in a quandary, precisely because the author is blazing a new trail?
4. A Chemist-philosopher (1931) and the Philosophers of Chemistry (1962-2014)
In the previous section, not because one wished to be more philological than philosophical, but only to build a necessary foundation across several linguistic borders and time periods, we found ourselves operating generally at the level of individual words. The discussion now moves to a higher semantic plane, and brings us into direct contact with the chemist-philosopher, philosopher-chemist, and philosophers of chemistry proper.[10] In this section, we are concerned with how the substance/element distinction of Mendeleev gave way to a 'simple substance' / 'basic substance' contrast which, in turn, came to be seen, over the decades, as the intellectual property of Paneth, not Mendeleev. I hasten to add that Paneth himself is innocent of that shift in perceived ownership away from the author of the idea. Nor is Paneth responsible for the gradual emergence of Kant's name in connection with his own, as candidate for Spiritual Father of Dualism in Chemistry. Paneth made it clear that his own point of reference was Hartmann, not Kant, as Earley (2009, p. 68) reminds us. In Ruthenberg 2009, p. 84, too, we are reminded of Hartmann, yet Ruthenberg goes on to spend twice as much time on Kant and on possible threads of connection from Kant to Paneth (pp. 85-86). And, by the time we come to Mahootian in 2013 (see pp. 171, 176 and passim), only Kant[11] is mentioned in connection with Paneth.
Figure 3: Details of how Paneth misreads Mendeleev and the Mendeleev/Lavoisier relation. Source for the Russian: Preface to Основы химии [Principles of Chemistry] 1947[1869], p. 15, abridged to bring out the bare bones of Mendeleev's formulation. Translation to English by CB. The formulation has a tripartite form as indicated by the boxed items. Regarding the rendition into German by Jawein & Thillot (1891, p. 27), see Figure 2.
Still, the blame does fall on Paneth for planting a seed of confusion out of which the distortions referred to above would eventually grow over an eighty-year period. It all begins with Paneth's misreading, in 1931, of a single sentence in the Jawein/Thillot translation of the red mercury oxide passage, which itself was already problematic, partly because of Mendeleev's 'concept of' usage, partly because of Jawein/Thillot's loose translation of his Russian to German.
In the 'Mendeleev' panel of Figure 3, the Russian is not a verbatim quote, but (again) a distillation from the 1869 text, with English and German translations. There are three boxed items which call out the tripartite syntax of Mendeleev's exposition. In the next panel, I show a key passage from the Königsberg lecture, in English translation, with important German terms inserted in brackets. As represented there, Paneth seems at first to be following Mendeleev faithfully, as he refers to the three constituents of Mendeleev's tripartite structure each in turn, as einfacher Körper, Stoff and stofflicher Bestandteil (per the Jawein/Thillot translation, that is, to be revisited in a moment). But then, in Paneth's account of Mendeleev, we find the first two pieces of the tripartite structure collapsed into one. This conflation error we indicate with a pair of arrows leading down in a large V-shape, from 'einfachen Körpers' and 'Stoffes' in one panel to a single term in the next panel. At this point one must conclude that Paneth has – in a small but crucial way – misconstrued Mendeleev's intent.
Paneth opines that Mendeleev should not have tried presenting einfacher Körper and das Element as opposites since Lavoisier had treated substance simple and élément as synonymous. At a superficial level, that admonition of Paneth's 'makes sense', given the backdrop of the nonintuitive usages that we detailed earlier in 'Facet 2': The alignment of einfacher Körper (simple body) with substance simple (simple substance) looks odd but is, in that limited sense, correct. The trouble with the admonition is in its intended purport, which lacks a logical foundation. Mendeleev's actual proposal is built upon his own term veshchestve ('substance') – plain and simple. I find no justification for believing that he sees prostom tele as the 'opposite' of element (элемент). To remain preoccupied with the part of our diagram that contains the loaded term 'substance simple', beneath which we see prostom tele, 'simple body', and 'einfachen Körpers', is to miss the point of his formulation. Read correctly, his prostom tele is like the raft that one leaves behind on the shore, after having crossed the proverbial stream.
As for Jawein and Thillot, they honor the tripartite form itself, but effectively ruin it a different way. Rather than trust the German word 'Element' to translate Russian элемент, they introduce a phrase of their own invention that skips over 'element' itself while endeavoring to convey its purport with a dozen other words: "the material constituent, not perceptible to the senses, of a composite body" (des sinnlich nicht wahrnehmbaren stofflichen Bestandtheiles eines zusammengesetzten Körpers).[12] Whatever their good intentions may have been, to explain how an element can be transcendental, what we notice today is that they left their German readership in the dark as to Mendeleev's actual text. To his credit, Paneth manages to read between the lines and deduce Element as the missing piece of the puzzle. (See "Only in the latter sense..." as quoted in Figure 3.) But thereafter, Paneth becomes preoccupied with Mendeleev's supposed clash with Lavoisier, and thus goes astray.
In a 1936 article, Paneth again criticizes Mendeleev's terminology, now taking this tack which leads, as Paneth would have it, once again back to Lavoisier: "[T]he terms used by Mendeleev are not very appropriate [and] by coupling them to the pair of concepts, molecule and atom, he seems to have missed the essential point. It is hardly possible in chemistry to introduce a contrast between elements and simple bodies, as the definition of the element since Lavoisier is based on the simple body" (Paneth 1964[1936], p. 57, original italics).
How do we get from 'element' versus 'simple body', on which Paneth's 1931 critique was focused, to atom-versus-molecule as the focus of his 1936 critique of Mendeleev? As of 1936, I suspect that Paneth might have been looking at the first page of Mendeleev's 1871 article:
Just as the words 'molecule' [and] 'atom' […] were used indiscriminately [in the past], so now the terms 'simple substance' and 'element' are often confounded with one another […] The idea of a simple substance corresponds to that of a molecule […] [I]n opposition to this, the term 'element' designates those material particles of simple and compound substances which determine their behavior from a chemical and physical point of view. The word element corresponds to the idea of an atom. [Mendeleev 2005 (1871), p. 38]
As I read it, the above passage takes the form of an A:B::X:Y analogy. In that analogy, it is not Mendeleev's intent that we couple A-to-X and B-to-Y; rather, he is making a comparison of A-and-B against X-and-Y, which is to say that he intends 'atom' only in the retrospective, pre-Lavoisier, classical sense. This reading of the analogy is supported by Bensaude-Vincent 1986, p. 11. It appears that Paneth adopts the other reading, according to which one would associate the term 'atom' with nineteenth century atomic theory. And that would be to once again put words in Mendeleev's mouth. Note that this confusion about the term 'atom', as used in Mendeleev 1871, is separate from the confusion engendered by Mendeleev 1899, the article published in French that we discussed already as part of 'Facet 3' above.
Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that Paneth was the one who (re-)introduced to the world the idea of a concrete/transcendental distinction, not Mendeleev. The way Paneth handles the job is itself problematic:
Ich habe immer dann von einem Grundstoff gesprochen, wenn die unzerstörbare, in Verbindungen und einfachen Stoffen vorhandene Substanz bezeichnet werden sollte. [Paneth 1931 p. 117, original emphasis, bolding on 'Substanz' added by me]
I have referred throughout to 'basic substance' whenever the indestructible substance present in compounds and simple substances was to be denoted. [Paneth 2003[1962] pp. 129-130, original italics; bolding on 'substance' added by me]
I have referred throughout to 'basic substance' whenever the indestructible stuff present in compounds and simple substances was to be denoted. [van Brakel 2014 p. 26. Here van Brakel is citing the 2002 prerelease of the Paneth reprint; I've added bolding to show where his citation diverges from what appears the following year in Foundations of Chemistry 2003 itself.]
Gone is the simplicity and clarity of Mendeleev's 'element'; instead we are now invited to contemplate an 'indestructible substance' (unzerstörbare Substanz). But 'substance' is the very last word we want to see when trying to conjure a notion of the transcendental nature of the elements. Note that someone (either an editor during the interval between the 2002 prerelease and the actual 2003 reprint, or perhaps van Brakel on the fly) changed 'indestructible substance' to 'indestructible stuff'. True, this emendation helps mirror – albeit backwards – the lexical distinction of Stoff vs. Substanz in the German original, but it leaves untouched a more important issue: How can any such word be accommodated in a passage whose aim is to sensitize us to the metaphysical, transcendental, abstract facet of the elements? It cannot. Whether translated as 'substance' or 'stuff', the word Substanz has no business being there at all.
Awkwardly though the distinction is drawn by Paneth, he is the one who nowadays is routinely given credit for it (see Earley 2009, p. 75; Mahootian 2013, pp. 171 and 176; van Brakel 2014, p. 26; and others). Here is a representative statement: "Immanuel Kant has built up a dualistic epistemology that seems to fit to the peculiarities of chemistry quite well. Friedrich Paneth used Kant's concept and characterised simple and basic substances [einfacher Stoff and Grundstoff] which refer to the empirical and to the transcendental world, respectively" (Ruthenberg 2009, p. 79). In that article, there is a fleeting mention of Mendeleev, but it exemplifies just that special flavor of inaccuracy that manifests so often across linguistic borders in general, and in particular in connection with Paneth and Mendeleev:
If we say, as did Boyle, that elements are the last products of analysis, then we are using the concept of empirical entities, which Paneth, like before him Mendeleev (see e.g. Paneth 1936, and Scerri 2007, pp. 120-121) and Urbain (see, e.g. Kragh 2000, p. 443) called 'simple substances' (einfache Stoffe). [Ruthenberg 2009, p. 83, italics added]
But as the reader of this article understands, the term 'simple substances' occurs not in Mendeleev but in Paneth, and there only in Paneth's own separate formulation that follows his synopsis and critique of Mendeleev (see Figure 3).
How is it that Paneth feels the need in 1931 to introduce fresh vocabulary (Grundstoff) rather than face the problem head-on by dealing with the German word, 'Element'? From the passage quoted earlier (Paneth 1962[1931] pp. 132-133) we gather that he believed the word 'élément', along with its counterparts in diverse non-French languages, must remain untouched, post-Lavoisier, for all time. The following two passages help clarify Paneth's view of the matter: "[I]t is impossible to overcome metaphysics – as Lavoisier thought he had done by [his anti-traditional redefinition of élément]" (Paneth 1962[1931], p. 124). "[In my Königsberg lecture] I endeavored to demonstrate […] how closely Lavoisier's […] concept of the element resembles the maligned 'metaphysical' principles of the philosophers and alchemists" (Paneth 1964[1936], p. 65).
Now Mendeleev knew what элемент means – or what he was at pains to make it mean again; and Paneth's 'philosophical writers' (his philosophische Schriftsteller of the day) knew what 'Element' means. The only ones who still seemed unaware of or unmoved by the transcendental facet of the word were, specifically, grade-school instructors and textbook authors.[13] The problem was with usage of the word 'Element' in those certain parts of the German education system circa 1930. To tackle this problem by promulgating a brand-new piece of vocabulary which was intended to overshadow or even supplant 'Element',[14] seems wrongheaded. It just barely made sense to entertain the Grundstoff idea briefly within the borders of the Germanophone world. Never was it fit for export across those borders as a fait accompli.
And yet, there it is, exported into English as the term 'basic substance', in Paneth 2003[1962], pp. 125 and 129-133 passim. On prosodic grounds alone, some might be concerned when a streamlined bisyllabic word in one language (Grundstoff) is rendered into another by a graceless seesaw term: ba-sic sub-stance. But the main problem for 'basic substance' resides on the semantic plane. The English qualifier 'basic' is found in dozens of existing terms such as 'basic training', 'basic attitude', 'basic French', 'basic utilities', and 'basic furnishings'. In none of those usages does 'basic' hint at the resonances suggested by the tight-knit collection of terms found in Paneth 1964[1936], p. 53n. There, the translator Eva Paneth provides this German/English glossary: Urmaterie, primordial matter; Materie, matter; Urstoff, primary substance; Stoff, substance; Stoffbegriff, concept of matter; Grundstoff, basic substance; einfacher Stoff, simple substance. In an addendum to that list, she notes on p. 58n that in passages featuring Stoffbegriff, she translates Stoff as 'matter' not 'substance'. Thus, Stoffbegriff can be seen as a bridge that connects the X-Stoff side of the semantic web – which is associated naturally with chemistry via Kohlenstoff (C), Sauerstoff (O), Stickstoff (N) and Wasserstoff (H) – to the Materie side, which goes lower than Grundstoff, all the way down to Urmaterie, the realm of physics. In English, a 'substance' is something that forever has a specific texture, color, or/and odor. In German, Stoff is a word that may be employed in a similar manner; see for example the four-tiered Experimentelle Hierarchie der Stoffe in Schummer 1996, p. 181, figure 3. But Stoff also has the potential for resonating with the rich semantic web that E. Paneth defines for us above, which is uniquely German in its constituency and flavors. Our English term 'substance' cannot be turned into something abstract and transcendental (Paneth 1964[1936], pp. 64-65) by the simple act of placing the qualifier 'basic' in front of it. Moreover, as one of the referees for this piece pointed out, the term 'basic substance' is already spoken for in the very lexicon of chemistry itself, as the conjugate of 'acidic substance'.
The word 'substance' when employed as the left-hand side of Mendeleev's substance/element distinction seems a natural choice. But when it is used in connection with Grundstoff, even if modified by 'basic', it strikes me as feeble and out of place. Some would say that in eschewing 'basic substance' I am right for the wrong reason. Earley (2009, p. 68) and Mahootian (2013, p. 177) presume that Paneth chose Grundstoff for its 'neutral' flavor and that the trouble with rendering Grundstoff as 'basic substance' is that 'substance' is weighted by too much historical baggage – which amounts to roughly the opposite of my own objection.
But moving beyond the question of how 'basic substance' relates to Grundstoff, is there a need in English to find a substitute for 'element'? Consider the following collection of references wherein we find not the slightest hint of 'help' needed from outside the text itself: "[S]o now the terms 'simple substance' and 'element' are often confounded with one another" (Mendeleev 2005 (1871), p. 38). "In this bound state the simple-substance was called an element […] [T]he elements must be taken as abstract species […] The distinction between the concepts of element and of simple substance is immediately apparent [in the English and German translations of 1891(1869) and in the Ann. (Chem. Pharm.), Suppl. of 1871]" (van Spronsen 1969, pp. 37, 58, 62n47, 62n48, italics added). More recently, we find the terms 'element' and 'abstract notion of chemical element' employed by Dmitriev (2004, pp. 248, 249, 272) – once again, with no special explanation of the verbiage thought necessary by the author.
Scerri 2007 is the major vector nowadays of the term 'basic substance'; ironically, it is that book which also provides one of the strongest arguments in support of my contention that the term 'element' works perfectly well on its own, without exegesis, and without the help of 'basic substance'. Readers of Scerri 2007 encounter the term 'element' (or 'abstract element') on pp. 16, 114, 115, 289n3, 291n31, 294n8, and 304n25, and in all of those cases they know exactly what the author intends. And yet, in counterpoint to that thread, the term 'basic substance' also makes its presence felt, on pp. xvi, 109, 304n21 and especially on pp. 278-286, passim. Why is it there? Far from conveying something new and important that is not conveyed already by the term 'element' in the same volume, 'basic substance' only sows confusion, causing the reader to wonder, repeatedly, 'What have I missed?'[15]
Earley (2009 p. 69)notes that the translation of Grundstoff as 'basic substance' is problematic because the Königsberg lecture "clearly implies that a Grundstoff is not 'a substance'". Also, in Earley's view, "the word 'element' should properly be assigned to the components of specific stuffs rather than to substantial materials" (ibid., p. 69). Here, what we notice is a strong resemblance to Mendeleev 1869, p. 15, but for Earley the point of reference is Paneth 1931. For einfacher Stoff, Earley would prefer "'elementary substance' rather than 'simple substance' or 'element'". Why? Because this makes 'element' available "for exclusive use as an English translation of 'Grundstoff'" (ibid. p. 75). Here we have come home at last to веществo (substance) and элемент (element) of the red mercury oxide passage. Mendeleev's wheel is thus reinvented, after an interval of 140 years. But Earley himself (ibid., pp. 69, 75) gives no indication that he acknowledges having thus closed the circle upon Mendeleev, whom he mentions only in passing on p. 67.[16] Five years after Earley, we find expressions of the same notion that the element/substance distinction somehow belongs to Paneth,[17] when it in fact belongs to Mendeleev: "There seems to be consensus concerning Paneth's (1931) proposal to distinguish basic and simple substances" (van Brakel 2014 p. 26).
From a distance, our presentation of Mendeleev's substance/element distinction may be taken as adjunct to the International Year of the Periodic Table. Viewed more closely, it is a cautionary tale about the misuse of language in philosophy of chemistry. In a kind of 'telephone game' that lasted nearly a century and a half (1869-2009), Mendeleev's formulation suffered ever more distortion, first at the hands of translators, then at the hands of its interpreters, until someone (Earley 2009) altered it one last time in such a way that it came full circle. Or, in connection with those who were unaware of the circle thus traversed, the phrase 'reinventing the wheel' comes to mind. Nor is Mendeleev an innocent bystander in all this; the 1869 formulation itself contains at least two non sequiturs and a nonstandard application of the word 'concept' (понятием), the combined effect of which immediately handicapped his translators in 1891. Still worse, Mendeleev's 1899 article in French took a brand-new tack, vexing in its failure to connect with his 1869 formulation. Sometimes less is more. The "calcination and revivification of mercury" (McEvoy 1995, p. 126) as depicted in Figure 1 is the short path to understanding the abstract element. Why not let it be also the preferred path?
I am indebted to Valery ('Larry') Tsimmerman for directing me to Mendeleevia, which is available courtesy of the Department of Chemistry at Moscow State University, chem.msu.ru, as an archival source for Russian texts in electronic form. My heavy debt to the HYLE editors and to two anonymous referees is too wide-ranging and complex to synopsize here.[18]
[1] Traditionally, HgO is associated with oxygen theory: "The red calx of mercury [had been] taken up by Lavoisier […] as the paradigm case showing […] oxidization and de-oxidization" (Chang 2012, p. 23). "Recognizing that Lavoisier's experiment on the calcination and revivification of mercury by heat alone provided a 'principal fact' in favor of the oxygen theory and against the phlogiston theory, Priestley responded in 1783 with a 'principal fact' of his own" (McEvoy 1995, p. 126). In this article, I present HgO in terms of a lecture-demonstration that I recall from eleventh-grade chemistry at Berkeley High School circa 1959, in which the contrast between mercury as a substance and mercury as an abstract element was emphasized.
[2] Although the term 'basic substance' is ubiquitous in Scerri 2007, its genesis in Paneth 2003[1962] is explained only belatedly, on pp. 279, 327n63.
[3] I acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Scerri for quoting Mendeleev's red mercury oxide passage on p. 115 of his 2007 book, since that passage, which reawakened an old fascination with HgO, became the seed for this article. However, in the surrounding text on pp. 114-115, far from elucidating Mendeleev's straightforward substance/element distinction, Scerri allows its outline to be blurred in the needlessly vague language of 'simple substance' (p. 114) and 'basic substance' (p. 115), neither of which terms even occurs in Mendeleev.
[4] In this article, I follow Paneth in using the term 'transcendental' in a nonKantian sense: "I wish to emphasise particularly that, like Hartmann, I am using the word 'transcendental' in its epistemological sense only, i.e., meaning 'beyond the sphere of consciousness'" (Paneth 2003[1962], p. 138n3). Similarly, I would like to employ the term 'metaphysical' in the straightforward sense of 'beyond-physical', as illustrated by the instance of 'Hg' that occurs inside the symbol 'HgO' at the center of Figure 1. But such usage is an uphill battle because that adjectival form, 'metaphysic-al', is almost always understood to be pejorative nowadays, in all European languages The pejorative flavor probably dates back at least to Lavoisier, if not earlier, as in the following remark: "Tout ce qu'on peut dire sur le nombre & sur la nature des élémens se borne, suivant moi, à des discussions purement métaphysiques." (Lavoisier 1789, p. xvii; 'All that can be said on the number and on the nature of elements is limited, as I see it, to purely metaphysical discussions.'
[5] For an overview of the relative mass data available to Mendeleev, see Jensen 2005 p. 28, and compare the various Cannizzaro values shown in Langford & Beebe 1995 pp. 30-31. As for the potentially embarrassing question of physics versus meta-physics, on more than one occasion Scerri has broached that subject, too: "It would appear that the elements […] had lost their fully metaphysical characteristic […] since they now possessed one important attribute" (Scerri 2005, p. 6; see also pp. 8, 22n15). "The more prosaic explanation given in contemporary chemistry is that what survives of each of the elements is the number of protons" (Scerri 2007, p. 304n22; see also 327n71).
[6] In Paneth 1964[1936], p. 58, we find this: "In a lecture three [sic] years ago I attempted to define more precisely the epistemological status of the chemical concept 'element', and especially to do justice to the double meaning that Mendeleeff had in mind [for it]". Here we find Mendeleev's nonstandard use of 'concept' and Paneth's nonstandard use of 'concept' crossing paths. The result is a kind of negative synergy; see Figure 3.
[7] As yet another example of standard usage, here is a line that we could have cited from Paneth himself: "Of the two senses [Bedeutungen] in which the expression [Ausdruck] 'chemical element' may be used, philosophical writers of today usually consider only one" (Paneth 2003[1962] p. 132). There, the splitting of one Ausdruck into two Bedeutungen is unremarkable. But if anything, examples of this kind only throw his nonstandard Begriff usage into higher relief.
[8] "Aristotle defined an element or 'simple body' as 'one of those bodies into which other bodies can be decomposed'" (Partington 1989, p.14). There is also Zosimos (circa 300) to consider who distinguished 'bodies' (metals) versus 'spirits' (vapors); and Boyle (1627-1691) who even applies capitalization to the word Body (Partington pp. 23, 70-71). Let us note in passing also the important role of 'body' in the glosses for 'Element', 'Radical', and 'Weight, Atomic' in Daubeny 1850[1831], pp. 497-502, a contemporary of Mendeleev.
[9] For this important piece of the puzzle, I rely on one of the anonymous journal referees.
[10] For context, see Schummer 1996, Chapter 3 (Die Chemie: ein Stiefkind der Philosophie [Chemistry: a Stepchild of Philosophy]), pp. 89-100. The chapter begins with a discussion of Paneth's opening paragraph (1931 p. 101; 2003[1962] p. 113) which concerns the place of chemistry in philosophy of science circa 1930. In using the term 'chemist-philosopher' I am thinking primarily of Paneth here, although Mendeleev clearly fits the concept as well.
[11] I do not deny that Mendeleev's formulation resonates with dualistic themes in diverse philosophies. For example, his 'substance/element' relation might be worth exploring in connection with the Māyā/Brahman relation in Vedānta (see Earley 2009, p. 69, re the Vedas). What concerns me is how Mendeleev's name has been gradually overshadowed by that of Paneth, and how Paneth's clear statement about Hartmann (see Note 4) has been gradually lost in the shadow of Kant.
[12] Spelling variation: In citing the Jawein/Thillot translation of Mendeleev, Paneth 1931 p. 121n3, has 'Begriff' and 'Bestandtheils' where Jawein & Thillot 1891, p. 27, has 'Begriffe' and 'Bestandtheiles'.
[13] From a quick sampling of books on my shelf, I find that the problem Paneth identified in Germany circa 1930 is evident in chemistry textbooks by U.S. authors in both the XX and XXI centuries. In those books, the word 'element' tends to be introduced in this curt, substance-centric fashion: 'Substances, if simple, are called elements'. I base that paraphrase on Zumdahl 1989, p. 24; Ebbing 1993, p. 45; Petrucci et al. 2002, p. 5; Moore et al. 2005, p. 15; Kotz et al. 2012, §1-4. In other words, I agree with Paneth's description of the situation; my objection is only to his way of addressing it.
[14] The Latin loan-word 'Element'has been part of the German language ever since the 13th century. By contrast, it was four centuries later that Stoff was borrowed into German, from Dutch (Duden 2006, pp. 177, 816). Accordingly, the reasonable approach would be to work with the venerable word 'Element' rather than quarantine it and promote 'Grundstoff', all because of what befell the French word 'élément' 142 years earlier, counting back from 1931.
[15] For background on certain sociological factors that might be at play here, see Earley 2009, p. 67n3 and n4.
[16] On p. 67, Earley (2009) asserts that Mendeleev claimed a "double meaning of the concept of a chemical element". As readers of this article understand, that puts words in Mendeleev's mouth; it is Paneth, seen by Earley through the lens of Scerri 2000. Cf. Scerri 2007 p. 114, which is somewhat closer to Mendeleev's actual verbiage, though still distorted through the lens of Paneth 1962[1931].
[17] From Earley 2009, p. 75, it would seem that Paneth alone must have put forth the notion of the abstract element. Cf. Mahootian 2013, pp. 176-178, which contain strong references, direct and indirect, to Earley p. 75.
[18] For an early draft of this article, I had counted up instances of the respective Russian, German, and French words for 'body' versus 'substance' and speculated at length on the significance of one or the other of them being prevalent in the writings of Mendeleev, Paneth, and Lavoisier. My elaborately worked out speculation was nonsense. I owe a huge debt to one of the HYLE referees who explained that, "Already in the late eighteenth century, Lavoisier's 'substance simple' was translated as простое тело. Mendeleev was simply using what had for generations been the standard term in the Russophone chemical community".
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Conal Boyce:
Century College, White Bear Lake, Minnesota, U.S.A.; conalboyce@gmail.com