Pragmatism philosophy

Andrea Woody received a B.A. in chemistry from Princeton and her Ph.D. from the department of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsbingh. She is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. Her current research concerns pragmatic techniques such as model building and alternative forms of representation that scientific communities develop to make abstract theories tractable, investigating how these techniques are relevant to philosophical accounts of explanation, representation, and rational theory change. Quantum chemistry remains a favorite landscape for exploring these issues. 

Johannes Hunger (Chapter 7) takes on another of the standard topics in the philosophy of science, explanation. Hunger examines, in detail, various ways that chemists explain and predict the structural properties of molecules. We learn about ab initio methods, empirical force field models and neural network models, each of which have been used to explain and predict molecular structure. And we learn that none of these approaches can be subsumed under either hypothetico-deductive or causal models of explanation. Either chemistry does not offer proper explanations (the normative option) or our philosophical models for explanation are inadequate to cover explanation in chemistry (the descriptive option). Hunger takes the descriptive option and sketches a more pragmatic approach to the explanation that develops Bas van Fraassen s approach to explanation for chemistry. Once again, we find that the philosophy of science has much to learn from the philosophy of chemistry. 

Ramberg, P. (2000). Pragmatism, Belief, and Reduction Stereoformulas and Atomic Models in Early Stereochemistry. HYLE - An International Journal of the Philosophy of Chemistry, 6(1), 29-51. 

There follow three articles by authors who did appear in the earlier volume. Joachim Schummer, the editor of the journal Hyle is the author of The Methodological Plurafism of Chemistry and Its Philosophical Implications. Joseph Earley, turns from symmetiy in chemistry to Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Chemistry . Paul Needham turns from ancient chemistry of Aristotle to a discussion of One Substance Or More ... 

Headley C (2013) Pragmatism and chemistry the role of chemical metaphors and analogies in shaping the philosophical imaginary of pragmatism. Read at the summer symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, Montevideo, Umguay Juarrero A (1999) Dynamics in action intentional behavior as a complex system. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA... 

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