Pluralism ontological

I have asserted that important methodological observations have sometimes led to extreme conclusions. Thus the observation that the applicability of our foundational physics to really predict and explain the behavior of actual systems is confined to a very limited set of such systems in the world has led, falsely, I think, to the conclusion that these theories are not applicable in any sense to the whole world and to versions of ontological pluralism. Again, the observation that the application of our foundational theories to real systems generally rests upon the need to idealize these systems in order that they can be dealt with by the foundational theories might lead, once more falsely, I think, to such claim as that the foundational theories are meant to apply only to abstract models and not to the real systems themselves. 

In a brief and very well written article, Alexander Manafu (2013) discusses, from a general viewpoint, the proposal advanced in the original work on ontological pluralism (Lombardi and Labarca 2005). The author does not call into question... 

Strictly speaking, Manafu s argument is completely correct, even with respect to the Kantian-rooted ontological pluralism that improves the internalist position of the original 2005 paper (see Lombardi and Perez Ransanz 2012). However, it does not dismantle our pluralist conclusions about the relationship between chemistry and physics. I will analyze separately each of the two situations mentioned by the author. 

The next steps consist of the extraction and normalization of terms from the zoned input document. To this end, we apply standard natural language processing techniques and normalize the extracted terms to their canonical form with string manipulations and morphological analysis. The former refers to the treatment of symbols (e.g., dashes), and the latter refers to variations of words due to inflection (e.g., plurals). These steps of information extraction rely on, and make extensive use of, our terminologies and ontologies. 

Such patent pluralism in our methods of description and explanation, a pluralism acknowledged by all, has led many to the conclusion that one ought to dismiss once and for all any claims of unlimited, universal scope for the foundational theories. And if these theories are so limited in their capacity for description and explanation, ought one not take their purported ontological claims as limited to restricted domains as well ... 

This had strong theoretical consequences. Because the imperceptible features of chemical substances were not the only relevant consideration, plural ontologies and theoretical commitments could exist within cultures of chemical study, and perceptible features—the taste, smeU and other forms of knowledge which we associate with the sensuous chemist— retained primary significance. So, for many materials, did descriptions on the basis of provenance, though in the reforms of nomenclature and taxonomy many substances came to classified on the basis of their chemical composition, not their other properties. 

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