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The Ontological Autonomy of the Chemical World: Facing the Criticisms

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Philosophy of Chemistry

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 306))

Abstract

The ontological autonomy of the chemical world has been explicitly defended from a Kantian-rooted ontological pluralism, according to which the ontological priority of the physical world turns out to be a mere metaphysical prejudice. From the pluralist viewpoint, concepts like bonding, molecular shape and orbital refer to entities belonging to the chemical ontology, which do not owe their existence to a more fundamental level of reality, but to the fact that they are described by theories with immense predictive and creative power. Since its first presentation in 2005, this pluralist position received both support and criticisms. More than eight years after that first work, it is time to take into account those criticisms and to try to answer them. This is the main purpose of the present article.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The response to this criticism was barely suggested in the article devoted to answer Needham’s objections (Lombardi and Labarca 2006).

  2. 2.

    This does not imply the agreement with Vihalemm’s defense of Niiniluoto’s (1999) critical scientific realism (for a criticism of Niiniluoto’s position, see Lombardi and Pérez Ransanz 2012, Chapter 2).

  3. 3.

    Here I will not discuss the particular issue of the existence of orbitals, since the detailed treatment of the problem is beyond the limits of this paper and will be treated in a future work (for a discussion of this topic, see Scerri 2000, 2001, 2002).

  4. 4.

    We will not discuss the charge of “incoherence” that Mulder directs to our position (Labarca and Lombardi 2010a), since the charge is based on the fact that we supposedly “maintain that in chemistry as well, electrons do not have definite trajectories, i.e. no definite positions at all times.” (Mulder 2011, p. 32). Since Mulder does not cite the criticized claim, and fails to indicate the page number, it is hard to understand where he could have drawn this conclusion from. In fact, we take just the opposite position: whereas quantum items are not spatially localized individuals, electrons in chemistry − although ruled by a law that fixes their position only statistically − are individual objects in a classical sense. Perhaps Mulder’s conclusion is due to the fact that we say that “electrons do not follow definite orbits” (Labarca and Lombardi 2010a, p. 154). But this does not mean that “chemical” electrons do not follow definite trajectories, since not every trajectory is an orbit; an orbit is a closed trajectory which, in general, is governed by a simple law. By contrast with Mulder’s reading, we claim that, although chemistry does not adopt a planetary model of the atom where electrons follow definite orbits, electrons are still conceived as individual and local objects with a definite spatial position.

  5. 5.

    Nelson’s statement is cited by Mulder in his 2010 paper. However, here the author seems to “forget” what he says in his 2011 paper, where he admits that the term ‘orbital’ has two different meanings. From a more decidedly reductionist position, in his 2010 paper Mulder considers Nelson’s position simply wrong: the chemical view of orbitals is a misconception.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CONICET – Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Olimpia Lombardi

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  1. Olimpia Lombardi
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Correspondence to Olimpia Lombardi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Eric Scerri

  2. Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Lee McIntyre

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Lombardi, O. (2015). The Ontological Autonomy of the Chemical World: Facing the Criticisms. In: Scerri, E., McIntyre, L. (eds) Philosophy of Chemistry. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 306. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9364-3_3

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