Contributions of the sociocultural domain to build a conceptual profile model for molecule and molecular structure

Abstract

This chapter deals with one of the most important concepts that help establishing the onto concept of matter: the concept of molecule. To understand modern chemistry, we cannot resort only to the classical molecules or to its modern counterparts: dynamic, polynuclear, or supramolecular frameworks. All of them are complementary views of the chemical world. They are not applicable to the same problems, but we cannot resort to only one of them to explain all the chemical phenomena. If we look out of chemistry, into everyday culture, this scientific complementarity should be expanded to incorporate other meanings in a complete conceptual profile of molecule. In this chapter we are going to report how the concept of molecule evolved in the sociocultural domain, trying to identify its genetic roots. We are also interested in examining the contexts of application of each conceptual zone, trying to establish epistemological and ontological consequences of each zone for the development of chemistry. Related to the zones that are outside the scientific domain, we are interested in showing contemporary uses of ideas that bear strong similarity with these zones. Finally we discuss some implications of determining this conceptual profile of molecule for chemistry teaching.