Chemistry metaphysical aspects

I will draw liberally on the work of my thesis grandfather, the chemist, Fritz Paneth. I use the term somewhat unusually, because Paneth was not the person who advised my own advisor Heinz Post but was, in fact, his natural father, from whom Heinz presumably developed an interest in the philosophical aspects of science. I will touch on such areas as realism, including naive realism, the nature of the periodic system, metaphysical aspects of chemistry, and, as suggested by the editors, the reduction of chemistry. 

A good deal of work carried out up to this point has been of an epistemological nature, such as the examination of the reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics by a number of authors e.g. Ramsey 1997, Needham 2000, Woody 2000, Scerri 2001). However, given the recent growth in the study of the J)hilosophy of chemistry, it seems appropriate to consider also the metaphysical aspects of the field. 

Various philosophers of chemistry have already examined metaphysical aspects of chemistry and in particular the question of the elements as natural kinds (Schummer 1996, Bensaude-Vincent 1998, van Brakel 2000, Cahn 2002, Harrd 2005, Lombardi LaBarca 2005). 

The present article will appeal to two interrelated metaphysical views concerning the chemical elements. The first such view is what may be called metaphysical in the naive, or literal, sense of the elements as being beyond observation. The second metaphysical view considers the elements as the fundamental entities or natural kinds of chemistry. More work has been carried out regarding the latter, including the question of whether the elements actually represent natural kinds. For example, the Kripke-Putnam causal theory of reference has led to a good deal of discussion of precisely how elements should be referred to and the question of their essential properties. There are some interesting connections between these two metaphysical aspects of the elements, that will be Indicated as the article proceeds. 

Considering material substances to be clusters of parts is the bare minimum for a mereology for chemistry. Specific applications of the rules for part-whole reasoning depend on the relation between the properties of the whole and the properties of its parts. For example, in Boyle s chemical metaphysics the corpuscular constituents of material stuffs have some of the same properties as the materials of which they are parts. Which properties are shared between parts and wholes is a fundamental aspect of chemistry at any one historical moment. For example, restrictions on which predicates could be transferred down a chain of inferences from parts to wholes and wholes to parts were expressed in the distinction between primary and secondary quahties, as formulated for example by John Locke (1689 Bk 11, Chapter 8, Section 23). Colour, taste and other secondary properties were not transferred firom wholes to their parts. Wholes and their parts shared mechanical ... 

Ricoeur P (1981) The rule of metaphor multi-disciplinary studies of the cieatimi of meaning in language. University of Toronto Press, Toronto Ruthenberg K (2009) Paneth, Kant, and the philosophy of chemistry. Found Chem 11 79-91 Scerri ER (2000) Realism, reduction and the intermediate position . In Bhushan N, Rosenfeld S (eds) Of minds and molecules. Oxford Univea ity Press, New Ywk, pp 51—72 Scerri ER (2005) Some aspects of the metaphysics of chemistry and the nature of the elements. Hyle 11 127-145... 

See Paneth, F. A. Chemical Elements and Primradial Matter Mendeleeffs View and the Present Position. In Chemistry and Beyond Selection from the Writings of the Late Professor FA. Paneth, edited by Herbert Dingle and G. R. Martin, 53—72. New York Wiley Interscience, 1965. See also Bensaude-Vincent, B. Mtaideleev s Periodic System of Chemical Eltanents. The British Journal for the History of Science 19, no. 1 (1986) 3—17, Scerri, E. R. Ttealism, Reductirai, and the Intermediate Positirai . In Of Minds and Molecules, New Philosophical Perspectives on Chemistry, edited by N. Bhushan and S. Rosenfeld, 51—72. New Yrak Oxford University Press, 2000, Scerri, E. R. Some Aspects of the Metaphysics of Chemistry and the Nature of the Eltanents. HYLE 11, no. 1—2 (2005) 127—145. 

In 2ilmost all aspects of importance to the further development of quantum chemistry, the atmosphere in the USA was opposite to that prevalent in Germany. Technology and science were much more closely linked, there was no rampage of top-heavy metaphysical ideas on Kultur, and perhaps most important, there were no strong institutional barriers. 

Some Aspects of the Metaphysics of Chemistry and the Nature of the Elements... 

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