This contribution addresses Hempel’s well-known “The Theoretician’s Dilemma” from the viewpoint of philosophy of chemistry. While from the viewpoint of mainstream philosophy of science it might appear that the issues raised by this paper, published in 1958, are well settled, philosophy of chemistry has the potential to reopen the debate on theoretical terms in an interesting way. In this contribution I will reopen the debate and approach the problem of theoretical terms in a fashion which may be instructive to the wider philosophy of science. In “The Theoretician’s Dilemma” the argument hinges on the purpose of theoretical terms. Theoretical terms either serve their purpose (that is, they form part of a deductive chain that establishes definite connections between observables), or they don’t. Hempel then mounts an argument to show that if theoretical terms serve their purpose, they can be dispensed with. On the other hand, of course, if the theoretical terms don’t serve their purpose, they should be dispensed with. Hence the dilemma shows that theoretical terms are unnecessary. Hempel’s way out of the dilemma is to attack its premise. Hempel argues that theoretical terms do more than just establish a convenient shorthand to describe observations. Theoretical terms, argues Hempel, serve an ontological function in addition to theoretical systematization. Theoretical terms pick out some essential feature of nature such that they allow theories to “track truth” (in the words of Psillos 1999). From the viewpoint of philosophy of chemistry, the issue is this. Chemical theories frequently refer to entities, such as “atoms,” “chemical elements,” “electrons,” and “orbitals” that have some counterpart of the same name in theories of physics. Such chemical theories, as per the quote from Nagel above, are generally formulated with great care, as are their counterparts in physics. Yet is also the case that the use of such terms in the theories of chemistry is in many cases inconsistent with how these same terms are conceived in physics.