Preservative Realism and Its Discontents:

Revisiting Caloric

Hasok Changy

A popular and plausible response against Laudan’s ‘‘pessimistic induction’’ has been what I

call ‘‘preservative realism,’’ which argues that there have actually been enough elements of

scientific knowledge preserved through major theory-change processes, and that those
elements can be accepted realistically. This paper argues against preservative realism, in

particular through a critical review of Psillos’s argument concerning the case of the caloric

theory of heat. Contrary to his argument, the historical record of the caloric theory reveals

that beliefs about the properties of material caloric, rejected by subsequent theories, were

indeed central to the successes of the caloric theory. Therefore caloric remains a favorable

case for Laudan. Further, I argue that even confirmed cases of preservation do not warrant an
inference to truth.

1. Introduction. As scientific realists attempt to counter Larry Laudan’s
‘‘pessimistic induction from the history of science’’ (1981),1 perhaps the
most promising line of attack is what I will call ‘‘preservative realism’’ in
this paper. According to the preservative realists, Laudan exaggerates the
discontinuities shown in the historical record of science; contrary to Lau-
dan’s arguments, there are significant elements of successful scientific theo-
ries that get preserved even through revolutionary upheavals, and those
preserved elements are what we can accept in a realist way. There are se-
veral varieties of preservative realism, including John Worrall’s structural
realism (1989) and Philip Kitcher’s idea that ‘‘working posits’’ are immune
to the pessimistic induction (1993, esp. 149).

yTo contact the author, please write to: Department of Science and Technology Studies,
University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; e-mail:

h.chang@ucl.ac.uk.

1. Although the basic idea of the pessimistic induction was not original to Laudan (it was at

least implicit in Thomas Kuhn’s discussion of incommensurability, if not also in other,

earlier works), it was Laudan’s sharp formulation of the idea that brought the point forcefully

into the realism literature.

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I wish to argue that preservative realism does not work. Since that is a
task that would require much more than a brief paper, here I will concentrate
on the critique of one particular preservative-realist argument, which will
also reveal some symptomatic problems with the general strategy.

2. Psillos on the Caloric Theory of Heat. The particular argument I want
to examine in this paper is the discussion of the caloric theory by Stathis
Psillos (1999, 115–130; also Psillos 1994). There are obvious reasons for
choosing Psillos’s work as the focus of my discussion. Not only is he a
major commentator on the realism debate, but he is also one of the very
few scientific realists who have engaged with the pessimistic induction in a
serious historical vein. In his admirable recent book on realism, he gives a
detailed examination of two of Laudan’s prime cases, optics and the caloric
theory. I will discuss the latter because that happens to be a historical case
that I know well, and also because I think the former has received a bit
more historical attention so far.

Psillos’s conclusion for the caloric case is as follows:

[N]ot all cases of abandoned terms are troublesome. The serious cases
concern terms which were indeed central in some genuinely successful
theory. . . . When some abandoned term had not been central, realists
should not be required to show how it can possibly be referential.
‘‘Caloric,’’ simply, was not such a central term. (Psillos 1999, 129–
130)

More generally, Psillos wants to maintain a disjunction between ‘‘the
theoretical constituents of past genuine successful theories that made es-
sential contributions to their successes,’’ and other constituents that were
included in the successful theories but did not actually do useful work
(1999, 110). That disjunction is indeed necessary as a basis of his main
strategy against the pessimistic induction, which he calls the ‘‘divide et
impera move’’:

[W]hen a theory is abandoned, its theoretical constituents . . . should not
be rejected en bloc. . . . [I]f it turns out that the theoretical constituents
that were responsible for the empirical success of otherwise abandoned
theories are those that have been retained in our current scientific image,
then a substantive version of scientific realism can still be defended.
(Psillos 1999, 108)

Psillos argues that the ‘‘laws of the caloric theory can be deemed to be
approximately true independently of the referential failure of ‘caloric’’’
(1999, 127).

Let us see if the history of the caloric theory supports the preservative
strategy, at first taking the history as Psillos tells it. He lists the following as

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the ‘‘three stages in the development of the caloric theory’’: laws of calo-
rimetry, the adiabatic law, and Carnot’s theory of heat engines (Psillos 1994,
168–179, 183; Psillos 1999, 125). Setting aside the point that anyone with a
detailed appreciation of the scientific work in the heyday of the caloric
theory will be puzzled by this selection, I am not even certain that they
actually help Psillos’s case. Let us examine the three items one by one.

Calorimetry was developed long before the caloric theory, mostly by
experimental considerations. As Psillos himself notes (1994, 168), it is a
practice that can be, and was, supported by the most phenomenological of
theories. All that it requires theoretically are: the assumption of heat
conservation in a particular class of phenomena, namely, the simple mixing
of two substances in which no chemical (or other strange) reactions take
place; and a concept of specific heat, phenomenologically understood as
the amount of heat required in effecting a unit increment in temperature.
Nothing in calorimetry actually depends on the caloric theory; if that is
Psillos’s point, then the point is correct. But if calorimetry was not a part of
the caloric theory, the preservation of calorimetric practices into later sci-
ence is neither here nor there when we are trying to see whether the case of
caloric bears out Laudan’s contention.

The second stage in Psillos’s picture of the development of caloric
theory is equally problematic, but in a very different way. The derivation of
the law of adiabatic expansion of gases did occur squarely within the ca-
loric tradition. More specifically, it was the work of Pierre-Simon Laplace
and his school, who took caloric as a ‘‘discrete fluid’’ made up of point-like
particles that exerted repulsive forces on each other, and attractive forces
on particles of ordinary matter (see Fox 1971, especially ch. 5). But this
seems to me rather a perfect case for Laudan, because the Laplacian
derivations did rely on particular ontological assumptions about the nature
of caloric, as I will discuss further in the next section. The fact that the
Laplacians got the ‘‘correct’’ (still preserved) formula on the basis of the
now-rejected ontology should alarm the realists, not reassure them.

Psillos argues that in the famous case of calculating the correction to
Newton’s theoretical value for the speed of sound, ‘‘Laplace’s account
does not explicitly rest on any particular representation of heat, although
he happened to be an advocate of the caloric theory.’’ That is a debatable
point regarding Laplace’s calculations, but the point is not debatable
when it comes to the explanatory rationale behind Laplace’s calculations.
As Psillos himself states: ‘‘He assumed that there was some quantity of
latent heat which was released from the compression of the air’’ (1999,
120). At that time, the only plausible explanation of adiabatic heating
was to understand it as the disengagement of caloric from ordinary mat-
ter, caused by mechanical compression. As the standard kinetic theory at
this time understood heat as vibrations of molecules around fixed points

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even in gases, it could not give a plausible explanation of adiabatic
heating.

Psillos’s third stage, Sadi Carnot’s theory of heat engines, is also prob-
lematic, in a complex way. First of all, Carnot’s work was not central to the
caloric tradition. It was created in the twilight of the caloric theory, and
most of the leading caloric theorists paid little attention to it. Perhaps even
more importantly, the character of Carnot’s theory was also very anom-
alous within the caloric tradition. Like the classical thermodynamic theory
that developed later and built on his work, Carnot’s theory was already
macroscopic-phenomenalistic to the point of abandoning all of the La-
placian microphysics of particles and forces. Even where Carnot used the
adiabatic law, he merely used it as an empirical regularity without relying
on the Laplacian theory behind its derivation. Carnot’s lasting achievement
was his novel method of tracing the macroscopic workings of the ideal
heat engine, not anything based on his hesitant acceptance of the caloric
theory. Psillos himself makes a similar point, but what it really shows is
that the success of Carnot’s theory is just as irrelevant as calorimetry to the
issues at hand.

To the extent that Carnot was a calorist, his work was a failure. In the
places where Carnot did make use of the central assumptions of the caloric
theory, his theory was not preserved but significantly revised. That can be
seen with the utmost clarity in the works of William Thomson (Lord
Kelvin), who first elaborated thermodynamics in the late 1840s, in
Carnot’s vein, and then had to modify the theory significantly (into the
form we are now familiar with) when he adopted energy conservation
under James Joule’s influence. The essence of the later thermodynamic
understanding of the heat engine was that heat was not conserved, but
destroyed and converted into mechanical work. That later picture was also
incompatible with Carnot’s idea that the mechanical work was generated
by the movement of caloric from a hotter to a colder place, in a process
analogous to the generation of power by the downward flow of water in a
water-wheel. All this amounted to the negation of the main thing that
Carnot believed about the caloric theory. The preserved elements of
Carnot’s theory, such as the anticipation of the second law of thermody-
namics, were just those parts that were unrelated to the tenets of the caloric
theory.

To summarize, the historical material highlighted by Psillos ends up
falling into the following categories, neither of which is effective in
supporting his case.

(1) Beliefs and practices that were not really part of the caloric theory:
whether these were preserved or not is irrelevant to the issue at
hand.

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(2) Theoretical beliefs within the caloric theory that were later rejected:
to the extent that these had led to successful empirical results, they
are just grist for Laudan’s mill.

3. The Real Successes of the Caloric Theory. Leaving behind the history
of the caloric theory as Psillos presents it, I would now like to evaluate the
cogency of the preservative-realist claim with respect to the real history of
the caloric theory. But before going into the history, the philosophical
thesis itself needs to be refined. Psillos argues that the empirical success of
the caloric theory was not due to the belief in the material reality of heat. I
do not think that the empirical success of any theory could credibly be
attributed to a belief at that level of vagueness. Where things get more
interesting is at the next level up in specificity: what kind of material sub-
stance is caloric; what are its properties, and what is the nature of its
interactions with other substances? If we may avoid an obsession with
reference, Laudan’s point can be reformulated as follows: the caloric the-
ory was empirically successful, but the assumptions about the nature of
caloric that were responsible for that success have been rejected as
incorrect. I think that claim is born out amply by the history.

In looking at the history, we must start by compiling a list of the
successes of the caloric theory. We cannot take Psillos’s version of the
history, because there is little resemblance between what he describes as
‘‘the laws of the caloric theory’’ and the most important aspects of the actual
caloric theories that once dominated the scientific landscape of Western
Europe.2 At least in the case of caloric, Psillos does not entirely escape the
syndrome lamented by Paul Feyerabend (1975, 19) as follows: ‘‘A little
brainwashing will go a long way in making the history of science duller,
simpler, more uniform, more ‘objective’ and more easily accessible to treat-
ment by strict and unchangeable rules.’’ Stephen Brush would give a
diagnosis of ‘‘precursoritis’’: in surveying the history of the caloric theory,
Psillos has only picked out the items that have a clear appearance of being
precursors of our modern beliefs. Even if this exercise were successful, it
could only serve up a vacuous proof that those elements of past science that
have survived into modern science have, indeed, survived.

I am happy to follow the definition of ‘‘success’’ that Psillos seems to be
working with: a theory is successful when it explains phenomena (however
we construe ‘‘explanation’’), and produces better explanations than avail-

2. In order to make this point fully, I would need to bring the voluminous historical

literature on caloric to bear on the debate, which I cannot do here. The most convenient brief

exposition of the history of caloric is Lilley 1948, which Psillos refers to. The most reliable

and extensive discussion can be found in Fox 1971.

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able competing theories can. But applying that criterion of success to the
history of caloric theory yields a very different list of successes from that
given by Psillos. The highlights of success in the actual history include the
explanations of the following: the flow of heat toward equilibrium, the
expansion of matter by heating, latent heat in changes of state, the elasticity
of gases and the fluidity of liquids, the heat released and absorbed in
chemical reactions, combustion, the radiation of heat, and the gas laws. In
order to distinguish between the ‘‘idle’’ and ‘‘essentially contributing’’ con-
stituents of the caloric theory, we need to discern which elements of the
theory were responsible for those successful explanations. After that, we
can see to what extent the essentially contributing constituents were pre-
served in later theories.

The initial attraction of the material theory of heat was in the easy
qualitative explanations it gave of the most basic thermal phenomena. The
most crucial theoretical assumption was that heat was a ‘‘self-repulsive’’
(or ‘‘elastic,’’ or ‘‘expansive’’) substance, while it was attracted to ordinary
matter. When combined with the idea that temperature was the density of
caloric, this basic system of forces yielded nice explanations of why heat
tended to flow from warmer to colder places, and why most things ex-
panded when they were heated. In the late-eighteenth century these basic
facts were not easily explained without recourse to the caloric theory;
attempts based on caloric’s main competitor, namely, the primitive idea
that heat was a form of motion, were generally considered to be inferior to
the caloric-based explanations.

After that start, the first major theoretical elaboration of the caloric
theory was the postulation that caloric existed in two different states: sen-
sible and latent.3 In its latent state, caloric was conceived to be unable to
affect the thermometer or our senses. As Psillos notes, the origin of this
version of caloric theory was in chemistry, particularly the works of Joseph
Black and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. Black’s most visible achievement in
heat theory was the explanation that changes of state (e.g., melting,
freezing, boiling and condensation) were caused by the addition or with-
drawal of latent heat. This idea explained not only why the addition or sub-
traction of heat did not result in temperature changes during changes of
state, but also explained the fundamental changes of physical properties
(e.g., fluidity and elasticity) as a consequence of the chemical combination
(or dissociation) of matter with large amounts of caloric. The assumption of
the two states of caloric was absolutely central to Black’s explanations—
not at all an idle piece of metaphysics.

3. Here I am neglecting the important tradition of William Irvine’s caloric theory, according

to which there was only one state of caloric. For a discussion of the Irvinist theory, see Fox

1971, 25–28, and passim.

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The two-state assumption was firmly and explicitly based on the
materialistic conception of caloric in Lavoisier’s great work, which brings
us to the maturity of the caloric theory. Lavoisier unequivocally identified
caloric as a chemical element, listing it prominently (just above oxygen) in
the table of chemical elements in his definitive textbook of the new
chemistry, Traité élémentaire de chimie, published in 1789.4 Lavoisier’s
conception of caloric as a chemical substance provided an attractive and
straightforward framework for the explanation of the heat absorbed and
released in various chemical reactions, which the dynamic theory of heat at
that time could not even come close to explaining. For Lavoisier, latent
heat was caloric when chemically combined with matter; if that chemical
bond was broken, free caloric was generated, manifesting itself as sensible
heat. The most celebrated instance of this, of course, was the production of
heat in combustion: the oxygen ‘‘base’’ combines with combustible sub-
stances, leaving behind the prodigious amount of caloric with which it had
been combined. Lavoisier’s conception of oxygen gas as a chemical
compound made up of oxygen base and a great deal of caloric was firmly
rooted in the general calorist conception of the three states of matter,
according to which it was the addition of latent caloric that converted sol-
ids into liquids, and liquids into gases. Therefore his explanation of com-
bustion constituted a particularly satisfying synthesis.

The explanatory centrality of caloric conceived as a particular type of
substance becomes even clearer when we consider a couple of further ma-
jor stages in the history of the caloric theory. Of immediate relevance here,
though sometimes neglected even by historians, is radiant heat, which was
studied with experimental precision since about 1790. In short, caloric
presented itself as the most obvious conceptual means of understanding the
radiation of heat: radiant heat was merely caloric being thrown about
between objects at extremely high speeds. People who did not believe in
the existence of caloric were left seriously confounded by radiant-heat
phenomena. Count Rumford, undoubtedly the most formidable opponent
of the caloric theory at the time, was forced to adopt a highly idiosyncratic
theory of ether vibrations in order to make sense of radiant heat. Rumford’s
theory was in fact quite cogent in my opinion, but it was almost universally
rejected or neglected because of its unusual features such as the doctrine
that the radiation of cold was equally real as the radiation of heat (see
Chang 2002). In the best scientific consensus of the day, the caloric theory
explained radiant heat, and did it much better than any easily conceivable
competitors.

Finally, we must consider the clear height of theoretical sophistication
in the caloric tradition, namely Laplace’s work in the 1820s. Psillos does

4. For a detailed discussion of Lavoisier’s caloric theory, see Morris 1972.

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discuss Laplace’s work, but curiously only focuses on his success regard-
ing the speed of sound.5 Laplace’s caloric theory explained a good deal of
important phenomena (the speed of sound, the adiabatic gas law, and the
regularities that are summarized by the ideal gas law), and it explained
these things better than any other competing theory did. Until the advent
of the molecular-kinetic theory of gases in the second half of the nine-
teenth century, there were no viable contenders to the Laplacian theory of
gases.

What was responsible for Laplace’s success? Once again, contrary to
what Psillos implies, assumptions about the material nature of caloric
played a crucial role. Laplace’s central premises were that the caloric fluid
was made up of point-like particles of caloric, and that the caloric particles,
most of which were contained within molecules of matter, repelled each
other with a force that was a function of distance only. Temperature was
defined as the density of ‘‘free caloric of space,’’ which was a small amount
of caloric flying around in intermolecular spaces, dislodged from the
molecules by intercaloric repulsion. Since Laplace did not know the precise
form of the intercaloric force function, he also needed other assumptions
such as the following: the force is negligible at any sensible distances; each
molecule in a gas in equilibrium contains the same amount of caloric; in
equilibrium, the caloric-filled molecules are spherical and stationary; and so
on (see Chang 2001, 265–267). Could all these premises for Laplace’s
derivation of the gas laws be understood in any sense as approximately true
according to modern theories? If so, I would be very surprised. The La-
placian metaphysics of mutually repelling caloric particles has been
completely and unhesitatingly rejected by modern science; the gas laws
have now been derived from entirely different assumptions.

I have now given a very quick survey of some of the most significant
and undisputed successes of the most orthodox line of the caloric theory.
Almost all of them are neglected by Psillos; each of them tends to support
the pessimistic induction, and fits Psillos’s story only with great difficulty.
The various assumptions about the nature of caloric and its interaction with
ordinary matter did perform essential work in producing successful expla-
nations, and they were clearly rejected by later science. (In addition, it
could easily be argued that the assumption of the materiality of caloric was
central to these explanatory successes, because it is difficult to see how the
various subsidiary assumptions about the nature of that substance can be
translated into sensible terms that do not involve the assumption of its
materiality.)

5. Psillos explicitly states that he will not treat Laplace’s work on caloric in the 1820s, and

states that this neglect will not affect the argument of the chapter (1999, 306–307 n. 3). I
think it does.

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One last point needs to be made before closing this section. Psillos
(1999, 116–119) maintains that ‘‘the scientists of this period were not com-
mitted to the truth of the hypothesis that the cause of heat was a material
substance,’’ although they generally preferred the caloric theory over the
kinetic theory and made use of the caloric theory in giving explanations. He
cites various statements from Black and Lavoisier expressing reservations
about accepting the truth of the material theory as a certainty. Although the
statements he quotes are genuine, they need to be understood in context.
First of all, Lavoisier and especially Black expressed that sort of caution
about all theories, not just the caloric theory. It is also difficult to take the
expressed caution too seriously, especially in Lavoisier’s case; as Robert
Morris (1972, 31) notes, from a man who put caloric into his table of
chemical elements, the theoretical caution comes across as mere lip service
to epistemic prudence, which was fashionable during that period. In any
case, what matters for our present purposes is whether the materiality of
caloric was in fact essential for the explanations of phenomena that were
accepted, not how willing the scientists were to claim to know anything for
certain.

4. The Long Road From Preservation to Realism. So far, I have argued
that the real history of the caloric theory does support Laudan’s pessimistic
induction, despite Psillos’s best efforts to show the contrary. One case, of
course, does not have much force as empirical evidence. Much more
careful historical work will be needed if we are to have a good sense of
how much of the history of science supports Laudan’s contention, and no
such general conclusions can be drawn from my discussion of the caloric
theory. However, in this final section of the paper I would like to add some
general reflections regarding the plausibility of what I termed ‘‘preserva-
tive realism’’ in the introduction. The following arguments are not put
forward as points proven by the case of caloric, but as general points that
should be obvious without any reliance on detailed historical evidence,
though they were stimulated by the consideration of the case of caloric. In
this section I also depart from a critique of Psillos, who has further positive
arguments for realism that need to be considered in their own right.6

Generally speaking, as long as there is something that is typically pre-
served from successful theories that are later discredited, the preserva-
tionist strategy has a fighting chance. Therefore it becomes important to
consider what kinds of things do tend to get preserved through major theo-
retical changes, and to see whether the preservation of those things can
support realism.

6. I thank Professor Ernan McMullin for stressing this last point.

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The survival of a good amount of old observational data would seem to
be a fairly typical feature of scientific change, despite the highly publicized
extreme cases in which the data themselves did change. The next category
that is a good candidate for preservation is phenomenological laws, which
represent the data into convenient mathematical relationships without spec-
ifying causes, mechanisms, and far-reaching theoretical principles; here we
come to things like the laws of calorimetry, compatible with any theory of
heat that allows conservation in simple mixtures. But neither of those
categories will give the realists what they want, and the majority of anti-
realists, including constructive empiricists, will not be disturbed by the
preservation of known observable phenomena or mere regularities found
among them.

What else is typically preserved through theoretical change? There are
two further categories and these are also not helpful to the realist, since
they are both determined by our own habits of thinking, not by anything to
do with mind-independent nature. First, there are techniques of represen-
tation and reasoning, including certain mathematical methods. Then there
are deep-seated metaphysical commitments, such as the desire for a con-
servation principle.7 But these metaphysical propositions are things that
‘‘can be held true come what may,’’ to borrow Quine’s phrase that was
meant to apply more broadly. The fact that certain representational
techniques and metaphysical beliefs have been maintained by most Euro-
pean scientists for the past few centuries is, in itself, no indication of the
way the world is.

That, as far as I can see, is the extent of the types of elements of scien-
tific knowledge that are preserved with good enough frequency. Structural
realists would object, and argue that they have identified something that
survives over and above facts and habits. But so far, I do not think that they
have produced many examples of lasting ‘‘structures,’’ other than the struc-
tures of certain data-sets that are expressed in phenomenological laws, and
perhaps the very abstract mathematical structures that modern physicists
have a habit of applying to whatever they can get their hands on.

The foregoing consideration points to the most fundamental problem
with preservative realism: even when we do have preservation, what we are
allowed to infer from it is not clear at all. The uncertainty arises from the
fact that there are several different reasons for which elements of scientific
knowledge may be preserved. Beliefs or practices may be preserved either
because nature continually speaks in favor of them, or because our own

7. Over the centuries scientists have believed in various conservation principles. Most of

them were empirically refuted and rejected, but that has not stopped scientists from simply

moving on to some other conservation principle. Thus we had the conservation of mass, of

motion (Descartes), of vis viva (Leibniz), of heat, then of energy.

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cognitive limitations confine us to them, or because we just want to keep
them. The inference from preservation to truth can be valid only if the latter
two possibilities can be ruled out. Even extraordinary cases of preservation,
in themselves, do not necessarily show anything beyond human limitations,
or conservatism assisted by enough obstinacy and ingenuity. Preservation is
far from a sufficient condition for realist acceptance.

I conclude with a metaphor designed to express this last point. The
metaphor sees the development of scientific knowledge as a process of put-
ting up a building. A building will collapse if its design goes against the
laws of nature in certain crucial ways; however, if we always work certain
features into the buildings we build (such as external decoration, or even
certain structural aspects), that does not necessarily mean that those con-
stant features are linked to laws of nature in any straightforward way. Like-
wise, in building scientific knowledge the systems we construct will
collapse if they disagree with nature in certain crucial ways; however,
certain features being constantly present does not mean that we can read
off anything inherent about nature from them. Even if our cognitive activi-
ties are stable, we may not be able to fathom the reasons for that stability.

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——— (2002), ‘‘Rumford and the Reflection of Radiant Cold: Historical Reflections and
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Feyerabend, Paul K. (1975), Against Method. London: New Left Books.
Fox, Robert (1971), The Caloric Theory of Gases from Lavoisier to Regnault. Oxford:

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Kitcher, Philip (1993), The Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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——— (1999), Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London and New York:
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