Chemistry's Metaphysics

This Element illuminates chemistry's importance to our understanding of the world, its structure, and fundamental ontological categories.

Vanessa A. Seifert (Author)

9781009467865, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 January 2024

86 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1 cm, 0.28 kg

The place of chemistry in the metaphysics of science may be viewed as peripheral compared to physics and biology. However, a metaphysics of science that disregards chemistry would be incomplete and ill-informed. This Element establishes this claim by showing how key metaphysical issues are informed by drawing on chemistry. Five metaphysical topics are investigated: natural kinds, scientific realism, reduction, laws and causation. These topics are spelled out from the perspective of ten chemical case studies, each of which illuminates the novel ways that metaphysics of science can be informed by chemistry. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Introduction
2. Natural kinds
3. Realism and reduction
4. Laws and causes
5. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP]