Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 306 Eric Scerri Lee McIntyre Editors Philosophy of Chemistry Growth of a New Discipline Philosophy of Chemistry BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF SCIENCE Editors ALISA BOKULICH, Boston University ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University JU¨ RGEN RENN, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens Managing Editor LINDY DIVARCI, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Editorial Board THEODORE ARABATZIS, University of Athens HEATHER E. DOUGLAS, University of Waterloo JEAN GAYON, Universite´ Paris 1 THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University HUBERT GOENNER, University of Goettingen JOHN HEILBRON, University of California, Berkeley DIANA KORMOS-BUCHWALD, California Institute of Technology CHRISTOPH LEHNER, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science PETER MCLAUGHLIN, Universitat€ Heidelberg AGUSTı´ NIETO-GALAN, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona NUCCIO ORDINE, Universita´ della Calabria ANA SIMO˜ ES, Universidade de Lisboa JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Harvard University BAICHUN ZHANG, Chinese Academy of Science VOLUME 306 More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5710 Eric Scerri • Lee McIntyre Editors Philosophy of Chemistry Growth of a New Discipline Editors Eric Scerri Lee McIntyre Department of Chemistry Center for Philosophy and History of Science and Biochemistry Boston University University of California Boston, MA, USA Los Angeles, CA, USA ISSN 0068-0346 ISSN 2214-7942 (electronic) ISBN 978-94-017-9363-6 ISBN 978-94-017-9364-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-9364-3 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955706 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Contents 1 Introduction .......................................... 1 Eric Scerri and Lee McIntyre 2 Reduction for a Dappled World: Connecting Chemical and Physical Theories ................................... 5 Hinne Hettema 3 The Ontological Autonomy of the Chemical World: Facing the Criticisms ................................... 23 Olimpia Lombardi 4 A Novel Approach to Emergence in Chemistry ................ 39 Alexandru Manafu 5 The Methodological Pluralism of Chemistry and Its Philosophical Implications ......................... 57 Joachim Schummer 6 Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Chemistry ................ 73 Joseph E. Earley Sr. 7 One Substance or More? ................................. 91 Paul Needham 8 Mereological Principles and Chemical Affordances ............ 107 Rom Harre´ 9 Metaphor in Chemistry: An Examination of Chemical Metaphor .................................. 121 Farzad Mahootian 10 From Corpuscles to Elements: Chemical Ontologies from Van Helmont to Lavoisier ........................... 141 Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino v vi Contents 11 Mendeleev and the Rare-Earth Crisis ....................... 155 Pieter Thyssen and Koen Binnemans 12 Radicals, Reactions, Realism .............................. 183 Klaus Ruthenberg 13 Orbital Symmetry, Idealization, and the Kairetic Account of Scientific Explanation .......................... 201 Grant Fisher 14 Investigating the Meaning of the Ceteris Paribus Clause in Chemistry .................................... 219 Jean-Pierre Noe¨l Llored About the Authors Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino is Associate Professor of philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research and scholarship include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and history and philosophy of science with a focus on the history and philosophy of chemistry. She has published widely in her field in journals such as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Philosophy East & West, Continental Philosophy Review, The Review of Metaphysics, and Foundations of Chemistry. She has also co-edited two books titled, respectively, The Philosophies of Environment and Technology (1999) and Shifting the Geography of Reason (2007). She is currently working on a book titled The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: Reconciling Mechanism With Experimental Chemistry. https://www. fau.edu/philosophy/PDF/Marina%20Banchetti%20Curriculum%20Vitae.pdf Koen Binnemans was born in Geel, Belgium, in 1970. He obtained his M.Sc. degree (1992) and Ph.D. degree (1996) in Chemistry at KU Leuven – University of Leuven (Belgium). In the period 1999–2005, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (Belgium). He did postdoctoral work with Prof. Jacques Lucas (Rennes, F) and Prof. Duncan W. Bruce (Exeter, UK). From 2002 until 2005, he was (part-time) associate professor, and from 2005 until 2010 professor of chemistry. Presently, is a full professor of chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of KU Leuven. He is an inorganic chemist specialised in ionic liquids and the chemistry of rare earths, and his major present research themes are the extraction and separation of rare earths, recycling of rare earths and the use of ionic liquids in hydrometallurgy. He is the author of more than 200 papers on rare earths (310 papers in total), and six chapters in the Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths. Prof. Binnemans is vice-president of the European Rare Earth and Actinide Society (ERES) and member of the steering committee of the European Rare Earths Competency Network (ERECON). Joseph E. Earley Sr. received a Ph.D. in physical and inorganic chemistry from Brown University, and did postdoctoral research with Henry Taube (later, Nobel Laureate) at the University of Chicago. He then joined the Chemistry faculty of vii viii About the Authors Georgetown University where he was Chair of that Department from 1984 to 1990. He also did research in Brussels with Ilya Prigogine (later, Nobel Laureate) and at Caltech with Harry B. Gray. He has published extensively on kinetics and mech- anisms of inorganic reactions in aqueous media, particularly reduction of perchlo- rate ion by titanous ions, electron-transfer reactions between Ti(III) and Ru(III), and aspects of chemical instabilities and oscillations. He has taught graduate and undergraduate inorganic chemistry and also science/philosophy courses (including dynamic-system modeling) for well-prepared non-science-major undergraduates. He has been publishing philosophical papers since 1981, with particular attention to how recently gained understanding of far-from-equilibrium open-system coher- ences (‘dissipative structures’) bears on long-standing philosophical (especially metaphysical) problems. In this connection he used concepts and approaches characteristic of Process Philosophy and of Pragmatism. Earley has edited two volumes: Chemical Explanation: Characteristics, Development, Autonomy (2003) and Individuality and Cooperative Action (1991). http://faculty.georgetown.edu/ earleyj/CVJEE.pdf Grant Fisher obtained an undergraduate degree in history and philosophy of science from University College, London and a master’s degree and PhD from the University of Leeds. He has taught at the universities of Durham, Leeds and Bogazici in Istanbul. He is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science in the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His research interests are in the philosophy of models and scientific explanation, history and philosophy of chem- istry, and the ethical, epistemic, and policy issues associated with emerging science and technology. He is currently editing a collection of articles in the Philosophy of Chemistry with Eric Scerri that is to be published by Oxford University Press. http://stp.kaist.ac.kr/eng/people/people11.html Rom Harre´ was born in New Zealand but has spent most of his life in