Levy, Monique

Levy, Monique. 1980. "The Reduction by Synthesis of Biology to Physical Chemistry." PSA, 1980(1) 151-159. 

Levy, Monique (1979) Les relations entre chimie et physique et le probleme de la reduction Epistemologia, 2 337-370. 

The concepts of electrons, protons, orbitals and energy levels that are deployed to explain chemical phenomena only succeed in doing so thanks to the judicious use of complementary hypotheses. According to quantum theory, carbon should be bivalent, but this does not stop the major part of its combinations being tetravalent. The hypothesis of the hybridization of orbitals explains this tetravalence, but, while compatible with quantum theory, it remains ad hoc. Moreover, while the systematization of theories in physics might well have succeeded in integrating certain elements of chemistry, it has not put an end to the development of independent chemical theories. That is why Monique Levy argues in the end for a reduction by synthesis which is a form of reduction that reserves a fundamental role for the reduced discipline. 

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