What is Electronegativity?

JUAN CAMILO MARTÍNEZ GONZÁLEZ

Coburg

Conferencia; Philosophycal Problems in Chemistry; 2014

Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts

p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 120%; text-align: left; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }Electronegativityis a concept widely used in modern chemistryin itsmost common version, it is supposed to address the ability ofchemical species to attract bonding electrons (those electrons whichare serving connecting functions). It is used to describe and explainreaction mechanisms, periodicity trends in the Periodic Table of theElements, as a heuristic tool to predict the chemical kind ofcompounds (whether they will be of molecular or ionic type), forpolarity estimations, for the explanation of hydrogen bonds, etc. Inthe present article, we are trying to analyse the epistemologicalstatus of electronegativity, taking the latter as a typical exemplarfrom the chemical sciences. By ?epistemological status? wesubsume the following issues: the historical stability of theconcept, the question of its reference, and the relation between(empirical) measurement and (theoretical) quantification. Althoughour emphasis will lie on the modern period of the last almost onehundred years, we will begin this study with a short account of theprehistory, which in fact has to begin with the word?electronegativity? rather than with the model or conceptexpressed by it. Section two provides an overview of the mainapproaches to characterize and determine electronegativity.