The Ontological Autonomy of the Chemical World: Facing the Criticisms

Lombardi, Olímpia

doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9364-3_3

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Seeman feels uncomfortable because, being interested in stereochemistry, he cannot read those equations. Of course, this situation is not a scientific limitation, but rather supports the thesis of the ontological autonomy of chemistry proposed by one of us (Lombardi and Labarca 2005;Lombardi 2014): chemistry can develop its knowledge about its own ontology with no need of legitimation coming from physics. In particular, stereochemistry is a highly articulated and successful body of technical knowledge independently of the difficulties of accounting for the disposition of atoms in space with quantum mechanics.…”

Section: Who Is Interested In Isomerism and Decoherence?supporting

confidence: 58%

Let us build better boats: an answer to Jeffrey Seeman’s “Moving beyond insularity in the history, philosophy, and sociology of chemistry”

2018

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In his recent Editorial Article, Seeman (2017) calls for the promotion of collaborative work among different disciplines, focusing on the case of the interaction between chemistry, the history of chemistry and the philosophy of chemistry. From a general viewpoint, it is difficult to disagree with this claim; moreover, the interest of scientists in the history and the philosophy of science is always welcome. However, the devil is in the details: there are several points that, we think, must be discussed more carefully with the aim of arriving at far-reaching conclusions. Who is interested in isomerism and decoherence?Seeman's article reproduces four equations included in our paper "Isomerism and decoherence" (2016) in order to criticize works that he considers too technical to be understood by average readers. However, they are equations that can be read after a first undergraduate course of theoretical quantum mechanics (perhaps with the only exception of Eq. (2), which was taken from Hund's proposal but is conceptually explained immediately below). We appeal to them precisely to introduce the fundamentals of decoherence, assuming that the readers of Foundations of Chemistry do not need to know the formalism. For instance, Eq. (1) is the Hamiltonian of a system of many particles, sum of kinetic and potential energies, with the same form as a classical Hamiltonian. Seeman feels uncomfortable because, being interested in stereochemistry, he cannot read those equations. Of course, this situation is not a scientific limitation, but rather supports the thesis of the ontological autonomy of chemistry proposed by one of us (Lombardi and Labarca 2005; Lombardi 2014): chemistry can develop its knowledge about its own ontology with no need of legitimation coming from physics. In particular, stereochemistry is a highly articulated and successful body of technical knowledge independently of the difficulties of accounting for the disposition

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Section: Who Is Interested In Isomerism and Decoherence?supporting

confidence: 58%

Let us build better boats: an answer to Jeffrey Seeman’s “Moving beyond insularity in the history, philosophy, and sociology of chemistry”

2018

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“…(Lombardi and Labarca 2011: 74). As a consequence, not only the theoretical virtues of chemistry, but primarily its pragmatic virtues are the factors that play a decisive role in the arguments for the autonomy of the chemical domain and against the assumption of ontic dependence (see also Lombardi 2014b).…”

Section: -Why Emergence?mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Ontological Status of Molecular Structure: Is it Possible to Reconcile Molecular Chemistry with Quantum Mechanics?

2022

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According to classical molecular chemistry, molecules have a structure, that is, they are sets of atoms with a definite arrangements in space and held together by chemical bonds. The concept of molecular structure is central to modern chemical thought given its impressive predictive power. It is also a very useful concept in chemistry education, due to its role in the rationalization and visualization of microscopic phenomena. However, such a concept seems to find no place in the ontology described by quantum mechanics, since it appeals to classical notions such as the position of the atomic nuclei or the individuality of electrons. Although this problem has attracted the attention of several authors, the discussion is far from settled. Some authors adopt an explicitly reductionist position and advocate to reconstruct the concept of molecular structure within the framework of the quantum theory. Others, although acknowledging the conceptual discontinuity between quantum mechanics and molecular chemistry, keep the hope of future reduction alive. From an explicitly non-reductionist position, on the contrary, others authors conceive molecular structure as an emergent phenomenon.The purpose of this article is to propose a different line of argumentation to address this problem. By contrast to reduction and emergence, the admission of a multiplicity of ontologies, not necessarily linked by hierarchical connections, cancels the need of finding a relation of dependence between the molecular level and the quantum level. This ontologically pluralist position can be applied to the issue of molecular structure, in order to argue that it is possible to admit the existence of structure in the ontology of molecular chemistry, in spite of the fact that it does not exist in the quantum world.

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“…For instance, in several works Robin Hendry (2004Hendry ( , 2008Hendry ( , 2010 has stressed the impossibility to reduce molecular structure to quantum mechanics. From a Kantian rooted position, Olimpia Lombardi andMartín Labarca (2005, 2006) advocate for the autonomy of the chemical world by emphasizing, not only the non-reducibility of molecular chemistry to quantum mechanics, but also the conceptual discontinuity between the two theories (Labarca & Lombardi, 2010; see also Lombardi, 2014).…”

Section: The Relevance Of the Ontological Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

About the Ontology of Quantum Chemistry

González

2019

Tópicos (México)

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Quantum chemistry is the branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems at the molecular level. Precisely due to its peculiar position between chemistry and physics, in the last times it has begun to engage the interest of the philosophers of chemistry. Nevertheless, in this philosophical field, quantum chemistry has been studied mainly from a historical viewpoint or from a perspective interested on methodological issues. By contrast, the question that will guide this article is: what kind of ontic items are those studied by quantum chemistry? In order to develop the argumentation, first the relevance of the ontological questions will be addressed. Then, it will be considered in what measure the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and the quantum-chemistry concept of electron fit in the quantum theoretical context. Finally, some issues about what quantum chemistry refers to will be discussed.

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The Ontological Autonomy of the Chemical World: Facing the Criticisms

Cited by 10 publications

References 32 publications

Let us build better boats: an answer to Jeffrey Seeman’s “Moving beyond insularity in the history, philosophy, and sociology of chemistry”

Let us build better boats: an answer to Jeffrey Seeman’s “Moving beyond insularity in the history, philosophy, and sociology of chemistry”

On the Ontological Status of Molecular Structure: Is it Possible to Reconcile Molecular Chemistry with Quantum Mechanics?

About the Ontology of Quantum Chemistry

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