- https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/philosophy/marina-banchetti/
- History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Phenomenology, Renaissance Philosophy, Neoplatonism and Pythagoreanism, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Of Language, and 39 morePhilosophy and history of mathematics, Zoosemiotics, Animal communication, Process Philosophy, Cognitive Ethology, Medieval Mereology, History and Philosophy of Logic, Medieval Philosophy, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, Idealism, Transcendental Idealism, German Idealism, Giordano Bruno, Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.W.F. Hegel, Edmund Husserl, F.H. Bradley, Benedetto Croce, Josiah Royce, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Carl Gustav Jung, Arnaldo Momigliano, Jakob von Uexküll, Thomas A. Sebeok, James Hillman, Rupert Sheldrake, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Umberto Eco, Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Irene Pepperberg, Elliot Wolfson, Moshe Idel, Stanley Fish, Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, and Jonathan I. Israeledit
- Ph.D., Philosophy,
University of Miami (1991)
Dissertation: "Edmund Husserl: Intentionality and Meaning"edit
This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresholds of life. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been discussed and developed in other books, some highly specialized and others of a... more
This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresholds of life. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been discussed and developed in other books, some highly specialized and others of a more general nature.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle sought to accommodate his complex chemical philosophy within the framework of a mechanistic theory of matter. More specifically, the book proposes that Boyle regarded chemical qualities as... more
This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle sought to accommodate his complex chemical philosophy within the framework of a mechanistic theory of matter. More specifically, the book proposes that Boyle regarded chemical qualities as properties that emerge from the mechanistic structure of chymical atoms. Within Boyle’s chemical ontology, chymical atoms are structured concretions of particles that Boyle considered to be chemically elementary entities, that is, chemical wholes that resist experimental analysis. Although this interpretation of Boyle’s chemical philosophy has already been suggested by other Boyle scholars, the present book provides a sustained philosophical argument to demonstrate that, for Boyle, chemical properties are dispositional, relational, emergent, and supervenient properties. This argument is strengthened by a detailed mereological analysis of Boylean chymical atoms that establishes the kind of theory of wholes and parts that is most consistent with an emergentist conception of chemical properties within Boylean chemical ontology. The emergentist position that is being attributed to Boyle supports his view that chemical reactions resist direct explanation in terms of the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles, as well as his position regarding the scientific autonomy of chymistry from mechanics and physics.
Research Interests: Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, History and philosophy of science (History), and 11 moreChemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Hylomorphism, Chymistry, History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Mechanicism, Corpuscularianism, Emergent Properties, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Substantial forms
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This three volume book project re-examines the origins and nature of the alienation of modern science from the lifeworld that was first identified by Edmund Husserl in his final work, 'The Crisis of the European Sciences and... more
This three volume book project re-examines the origins and nature of the alienation of modern science from the lifeworld that was first identified by Edmund Husserl in his final work, 'The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology'. The book also proposes a possible solution to the fundamental breakdown of the relation between nature, the lifeworld, and the positive sciences. Volume One discusses the background of the Scientific Revolution. As a corrective to Husserl's erroneous account of Galilean science as the rediscovery of Greek rationality, Volume One focuses on the mytho-poetic roots (vitalistic, alchemical, and hermetic) of the modern shift to the heliocentric cosmology, the Galilean mathematization of nature, the unification of the laws governing terrestrial and celestial phenomena, and the empirical focus of modern science. Volume Two discusses the early modern shift towards a mechanistic and reductionist conception of physical nature and natural laws and the resulting problem of explaining how both life and consciousness are possible in a universe of inert 'dead' matter. In addition to this, Volume Two discusses the negative consequences for both modern science and for the relation between the human and the natural world of such reductionism, modernity's spiritual alienation from nature, what Max Weber's termed the modern 'disenchantment of the world', and the resultant environmental crisis. Volume Three proposes that the solution to the crisis of modern science lies in the 're-enchantment' of the material world, not in terms of a return to premodern vitalism or supernaturalism, but in terms of a Hegelian synthesis between contemporary scientific practice and a conception of the physical universe in panpsychic terms. Volume Three also examines contemporary attempts at such a possible synthesis, both in the natural and in the human and social sciences, re-conceptualizing the physical world and its processes as panpsychic (Bergson and Whitehead, for example) and as systemic complexities according which self-organization, life, and ultimately consciousness are considered as fundamental (albeit dispositional and relational) properties of all matter.
Research Interests: Self-Organization, History of Science, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Process Philosophy, and 15 morePanpsychism, Reductionism, Mythopoeia, Max Weber, Mythopoesis, Vitalism, Organicism, A. N. Whitehead and Process Philosophy, History of Modern Science, Reenchantment, Neo Vitalism, The Disenchantment of the World, Réenchantement Du Monde, Whiteheadian Panpsychism, and alienation from Nature
This paper uses the mereological distinction between wide wholes and organic wholes to critique the legal concept of corporate personhood and corporate rights. Mereology is the field of logic and metaphysics that studies the formal... more
This paper uses the mereological distinction between wide wholes and organic wholes to critique the legal concept of corporate personhood and corporate rights. Mereology is the field of logic and metaphysics that studies the formal relations between parts and wholes. Although mereology was a philosophical concern as far back as Aristotle, the work of Edmund Husserl resurrected modern philosophical interest in this field. The concepts of wide whole and organic whole are first discussed in Husserl's 'Logical Investigations' and 'Experience and Judgment' and are later further developed in the work of Barry Smith. This paper will explain in detail the formal distinction between the whole-parts relation in wide wholes vs. the whole-parts relation in organic wholes. The paper will then closely examine the whole-parts relation in persons and the whole-parts relation in corporations. This discussion will demonstrate that, although persons are examples of organic wholes, corporations are examples of wide wholes. Since corporations and persons represent entirely different mereological types, the paper will conclude that the concept of 'corporate personhood' is formally and mereologically incoherent. Therefore, since the concept of corporate personhood serves as the legal basis for corporate rights, we must conclude (by transitivity) that the notion corporate rights is also an incoherent concept and does not have solid philosophical or logical foundations.
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This paper uses the example of the discovery of the weak neutral current in the mid-1970's as a case study to argue against the Kuhnian notion of incommensurability between scientific paradigms. More specifically, the paper shows that,... more
This paper uses the example of the discovery of the weak neutral current in the mid-1970's as a case study to argue against the Kuhnian notion of incommensurability between scientific paradigms. More specifically, the paper shows that, although the Weinberg-Salam model was indeed ontologically incommensurable with the Vector-Axial model that preceded it, it was neither methodologically, epistemically, nor linguistically incommensurable with its predecessor. In fact, the paper argues that the sort of global incommensurability discussed by Kuhn undermines the possibility of actual paradigm shift in this and in most other scientific cases.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Physics, History and Philosophy of Physics, Sociology of Science, Thomas S. Kuhn, and 11 moreBasic Research Structures and the Scientific Paradigm, Gauge theory, Gauge Theories, Quantum Field Theory, Paradigm Shifts, Renormalization, Research Paradigms, History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Philosophy and history of science, Scientific paradigms, History and Philosophy of Science, and Steven Weinberg
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Renaissance Platonism, Neoplatonism, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., and 6 moreHiro Hirai, Seminal Reasons, Philosophy and history of science, Platonism and Idealism, History and Philosophy of Science, and Pythagorism and Platonism
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This paper is a transcription in French and a translation into English by Marina Banchetti of a recorded lecture by Alfred Schutz, as part of a panel of philosophers discussing their memories of Husserl at Royaumont in 1957. One memory... more
This paper is a transcription in French and a translation into English by Marina Banchetti of a recorded lecture by Alfred Schutz, as part of a panel of philosophers discussing their memories of Husserl at Royaumont in 1957. One memory recounted by Schutz concerns Husserl lecturing in Prague without notes on the dignity of philosophy. The other has to do with Schutz ordering oranges for Husserl during his final illness.
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Research Interests: History, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, and 14 morePhilosophy of Chemistry, John Locke, Natural Kinds, Early Modern Science, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, History of Chemistry, Philosophy and history of science, Foundations of Chemistry, Chemical Structure, Early Modern Chemistry, and Chemical Microstructure
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This paper examines whether classical extensional mereology is adequate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems. Although other philosophers have argued that classical extensional and summative mereology does... more
This paper examines whether classical extensional mereology is adequate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems. Although other philosophers have argued that classical extensional and summative mereology does not adequately formalize whole–parts relation within organic wholes and social wholes, such critiques often assume that summative mereology is appropriate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in inorganic wholes such as atoms and molecules. However, my discussion of atoms and molecules as they are conceptualized in quantum chemistry will establish that standard mereology cannot adequately fulfill this task, since the properties and behavior of such wholes are context-dependent and cannot simply be reduced to the summative properties of their parts. To the extent that philosophers of chemistry have called for the development of an alternative mereology for quantum chemical systems, this paper ends by proposing behavioral mereology as a promising ...
Research Interests: Mathematics, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Logic, Phenomenology, and 11 moreEdmund Husserl, Formal Ontology, Mereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Formal Ontology (Philosophy), Husserl, Philosophies, Parts and Wholes, Mereological Ontology, History and Philosophy of Science, and Ontology and Formal Ontology
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In his book, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences, Thomas Seebohm articulates the view that history can serve to mediate between the sciences of explanation and the sciences of interpretation, that is, between the natural... more
In his book, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences, Thomas Seebohm articulates the view that history can serve to mediate between the sciences of explanation and the sciences of interpretation, that is, between the natural sciences and the human sciences. Among other things, Seebohm analyzes history from a phenomenological perspective to reveal the material foundations of the historical human sciences in the lifeworld. As a preliminary to his analyses, Seebohm examines the formal and material presuppositions of phenomenological epistemology, as well as the emergence of the human sciences and the traditional distinctions and divisions that are made between the natural and the human sciences.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Ontology, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Edmund Husserl, and 8 moreMereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Husserl, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Husserlian phenomenology, Phenomenology of science, Philosophy and history of science, and Husserlian Studies
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Alchemy, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Neoplatonism, Early Modern Studies, and 12 moreChemical Philosophy, Chymistry, Chymie, Van Helmont, History of Chemistry, History of alchemy, Chemical Ontology, Filosofia Della Scienza, Philosophy and history of science, Storia Della Scienza, History and Philosophy of Science, and Early Modern Chemistry
CHEMIST AND PHILOSOPHER of chemistry Joseph E. Earley has recently argued that, in order to resolve some of its most seemingly intractable problems, philosophy of mind should take into consideration the work currently being done in... more
CHEMIST AND PHILOSOPHER of chemistry Joseph E. Earley has recently argued that, in order to resolve some of its most seemingly intractable problems, philosophy of mind should take into consideration the work currently being done in philosophy of chemistry. This is because there exist obvious parallels between questions that inform philosophy of chemistry and the so-called hard problem of consciousness in philosophy of mind. As David Chalmers describes it, the hard problem of consciousness is that of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain states, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, mental states, or events with phenomenal qualities or “qualia”). The “hard problem” is related to the problem of the reduction of mental states to brain states and of the emergence of mental phenomena from physical phenomena. Similar issues are encountered in philosophy of chemistry, such as the reduction of higher-level chemical phenomena to lower-level physical ...
Research Interests: Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, and 15 morePhenomenology, Mereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Philosophy of Computer Science, Emergence, Philosophy of Neuroscience, Jaegwon Kim, Downward causation, Philosophy of Language and Mind, Nonreductive Physicalism, Self Organization, Michel Bitbol, Philosophy and history of science, Reductive Materialism, and Philosophy of Natural Sciences
Early modern efforts to reconceptualize atomicity as a chymical notion fell by the wayside during the chemical revolution, as Antoine Lavoisier’s desire to transform chemistry into a strictly empirical and quantitative science led him to... more
Early modern efforts to reconceptualize atomicity as a chymical notion fell by the wayside during the chemical revolution, as Antoine Lavoisier’s desire to transform chemistry into a strictly empirical and quantitative science led him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the fundamental nature of matter. Instead, Lavoisier focused on identifying elementary substances, which he defined operationally as the final products of chemical analysis. Our current understanding of the relation between atoms and elements, however, owes a great deal to the work of nineteenth-century chemist John Dalton. Dalton’s chemical atomic theory reconciled the concepts of “atomicity” and “elementarity” and rendered both as empirical and chemical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative analysis. One of the central goals of Dalton’s theory was understanding how relative weights of chemical atoms determine the properties of elements and how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to...
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This paper establishes that Robert Boyle’s complex chemical ontology implies a nonreductionistic conception of chemical qualities and, more specifically, a conception of chemical qualities as being dispositional and relational. Though... more
This paper establishes that Robert Boyle’s complex chemical ontology implies a nonreductionistic conception of chemical qualities and, more specifically, a conception of chemical qualities as being dispositional and relational. Though Peter Anstey has already shown that that Boyle considered sensible qualities to be dispositional and relational, this moves beyond Anstey’s work by extending his arguments to chemical properties. These arguments are, however, merely a first step in establishing a non-reductionistic interpretation of Boyle’s chemical ontology. A further argument will show that Boyle regards chemical and other higher-level properties as being emergent and supervenient properties. These arguments are supported by substantial textual evidence from Boyle’s writings, which show that he clearly conceived of chemical substances as functional wholes whose properties emerge not only from the microstructural ordering of their parts but also from their relationship with other chemical substances within the context of experimental practice.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Philosophy of Chemistry, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, and 7 moreChymistry, History of Chemistry, Foundations of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Science, Early Modern Chemistry, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
The modern study of chemistry has its foundations in the alchemy of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early 17th century. In this period, great progress was made towards a better and more accurate understanding of chemical... more
The modern study of chemistry has its foundations in the alchemy of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early 17th century. In this period, great progress was made towards a better and more accurate understanding of chemical substances, including their structure, properties, and how they relate to one another. One of the most prominent thinkers to make advances in these areas was the Irish chemist Robert Boyle. In my book The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and Emergence, I offer an analysis of the contributions made by Boyle and of his chemical philosophy as it related to the dominant Cartesian mechanistic theory of matter. Building on Descartes’ mechanistic view, Boyle succeeded in rooting the mechanical philosophy in empirical experimentation, while also accounting for the emergent and non-reducible nature of chemical properties. In doing so, he was also affirming the autonomy of chemistry from more fundamental sciences such as mechanics and its legitimacy as a theoretical and experiment science, with its own distinctive objects of study and its own distinctive explanatory framework. These concerns are still pertinenet for contemporary chemistry and philosophy of chemistry. This book advances Boyle scholarship by going beyond other researchers and providing a detailed look at the parts-whole relations within chemical atoms as conceptualized by Boyle. That is, the book examines in detail the relation between fundamental particles and their mechanistic properties and the properties of complex wholes made of such particles.
Research Interests: Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Early Modern Science, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, Chymie, and 6 moreEarly Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Philosophy and history of science, History and Philosophy of Science, Early Modern Chemistry, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
Research Interests: Philosophy, Ontology, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Edmund Husserl, and 9 moreFormal Ontology, Mereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Husserl, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Husserlian phenomenology, Phenomenology of science, Philosophy and history of science, and Husserlian Studies
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The scope of this book is to use a historico-epistemological approach to follow the passage, in the microscopic analysis of reality, from the atomic to the molecular and then macromolecular levels. This scientific journey has important... more
The scope of this book is to use a historico-epistemological approach to follow the passage, in the microscopic analysis of reality, from the atomic to the molecular and then macromolecular levels. This scientific journey has important philosophical consequences that will constitute an integral part of this book. This book can be framed within the sectors of systems science and of the so-called sciences of complexity, which are areas that are fundamental for 21st century science. In fact, the possibility of studying and understanding the material world through levels of complexity (atomic, molecular, macromolecular, cellular, etc.) opens a great philosophical space that proposes to provide systemic and complex explanations, rather reductionistic explanations that ultimately pretend to account for all phenomena through the interactions of elementary particles, while considering everything implicit and deterministic. The systemic and complex approach implies substituting unique top-down explanations, which move exclusively from the microscopically simple to the macroscopically complex, with a series of explanations that are horizontal (within the planes of complexity), vertically top-down, vertically bottom-up (between various planes of complexity), and circular, that render all levels of reality and the disciplines that study these levels both autonomous and interconnected.
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Although Giambattista Vico is his- torically and culturally far removed from the literary and political movement known as ‘negritude’, which aimed at resisting the geographic and cultural col- onization of African and Afro-Caribbean... more
Although Giambattista Vico is his- torically and culturally far removed from the literary and political movement known as ‘negritude’, which aimed at resisting the geographic and cultural col- onization of African and Afro-Caribbean people, some of his ideas regarding the nature of history, culture, and myth can provide new and important insights into the works of the negritude poets. What the author hopes to show, in this essay, is that the poetry of negritude and its role in the context of black resistance can be understood through the lens of Vico’s anti-Cartesian epistemology and his claims regarding the important historical and cultural role of the poetic imagination.
Research Interests: Giambattista Vico, Jean Paul Sartre, Fanon, Vico, Giambattista, Frantz Fanon, and 9 moreAimé Césaire, Vico, Sartre, Negritude, Négritude in comparative perspective, Negritude, Feminism, and the Quest for Identity: Re-Reading Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter, Franz Fanon, La Litterature Francophone De La Negritude, and Vico) History of Scientific and Philosophical Ideas Philosophy and Psychology of Action
This article constitutes the author's response to the commentaries by Antonio Clericuzio, William Eaton, and Benjamin Goldberg, as part of the book forum on "The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and... more
This article constitutes the author's response to the commentaries by Antonio Clericuzio, William Eaton, and Benjamin Goldberg, as part of the book forum on "The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and Emergence" (Oxford University Press, 2020), which will be published in 'Studies in History and Philosophy of Science'.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Philosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, Reductionism, Chemical Philosophy, and 10 moreRobert Boyle, Chymistry, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Dispositional Properties, Early Modern Natural Philosophy, Early Modern Natural Sciences, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Relational Properties
This paper establishes that Robert Boyle’s complex chemical ontology implies a nonreductionistic conception of chemical qualities and, more specifically, a conception of chemical qualities as being dispositional and relational. Though... more
This paper establishes that Robert Boyle’s complex chemical ontology implies a nonreductionistic conception of chemical qualities and, more specifically, a conception of chemical qualities as being dispositional and relational. Though Peter Anstey has already shown that that Boyle considered sensible qualities to be dispositional and relational, this moves beyond Anstey’s work by extending his arguments to chemical properties. These arguments are, however, merely a first step in establishing a non-reductionistic interpretation of Boyle’s chemical ontology. A further argument will show that Boyle regards chemical and other higher-level properties as being emergent and supervenient properties. These arguments are supported by substantial textual evidence from Boyle’s writings, which show that he clearly conceived of chemical substances as functional wholes whose properties emerge not only from the microstructural ordering of their parts but also from their relationship with other chemical substances within the context of experimental practice.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Philosophy of Chemistry, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, and 7 moreChymistry, History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, History and Philosophy of Science, Early Modern Chemistry, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
L’alchimista, medico, ed astrologo svizzero Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), detto Paracelso, fu uno dei più importanti rappresentanti del vitalismo e del neoplatonismo Seicentesco. In particolare, sia... more
L’alchimista, medico, ed astrologo svizzero Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), detto Paracelso, fu uno dei più importanti rappresentanti del vitalismo e del neoplatonismo Seicentesco. In particolare, sia la metafisica che la cosmologia paracelsiana sono profondamente indebitate sia al vitalismo che all’ermetismo rinascimentale. Questo saggio elabora su queste idee, enfatizzando la relazione tra la cosmologia vitalistica di Paracelso e le sue teorie mediche e spagiriche. Si comincia per stabilire il contesto filosofico del pensiero paracelsiano, esaminando in particolare il significato del vitalismo rinascimentale e dei concetti delle semina rerum e delle minima naturalia che contribuirono allo sviluppo di una teoria particellare della materia unicamente medioevale e rinascimentale. Finalmente, si discutono le teorie metafisiche e cosmologiche di Paracelso ed il modo nel quale queste teorie si legano alla sua spagirica vitalistica. In particolare, si enfatizza il modo in cui Paracelso appropria la teoria particellare della materia, infondendola con i vari elementi vitalistici, per sviluppare le sue spagiriche e la sua teoria ontologica della malattia.
The Swiss alchemist, physician, and astrologer Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), known as Paracelsus, was one of the most important representatives of 16th century vitalism and Neoplatonism. More specifically, both his metaphysics and his cosmology are heavily indebted to Renaissance vitalism and hermeticism. This essay elaborates on these ideas, emphasizing the relationship between Paracelsus’s vitalistic cosmology and his medical and spagyric theories. The essay first establishes the philosophical context of paracelsian thought and specifically examines the Renaissance vitalism, as well as the concepts of semina rerum and of minima naturalia, both of which contributed to the development of the unique particulate theories of matter prevalent in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Finally, the essay discusses Paracelsus’s metaphysical and cosmological theories and the way in which these theories were tied to his vitalistic spagyria. More particularly, the emphasis is placed on the way in which Paracelsus appropriates the particulate theory of matter and infuses it with various vitalistic elements, in order to develop his spagirical therapies and his ontological theory of illness.
The Swiss alchemist, physician, and astrologer Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), known as Paracelsus, was one of the most important representatives of 16th century vitalism and Neoplatonism. More specifically, both his metaphysics and his cosmology are heavily indebted to Renaissance vitalism and hermeticism. This essay elaborates on these ideas, emphasizing the relationship between Paracelsus’s vitalistic cosmology and his medical and spagyric theories. The essay first establishes the philosophical context of paracelsian thought and specifically examines the Renaissance vitalism, as well as the concepts of semina rerum and of minima naturalia, both of which contributed to the development of the unique particulate theories of matter prevalent in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Finally, the essay discusses Paracelsus’s metaphysical and cosmological theories and the way in which these theories were tied to his vitalistic spagyria. More particularly, the emphasis is placed on the way in which Paracelsus appropriates the particulate theory of matter and infuses it with various vitalistic elements, in order to develop his spagirical therapies and his ontological theory of illness.
Research Interests: Renaissance Platonism, Alchemy, Paracelsus (Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus von Hohenheim), Vitalism, Paracelsus, and 14 moreMedieval and Renaissance Science and Medicine, Anti-Cartesianism, Renaissance Neoplatonism, Early Renaissance Medicine and Pharmacology, History of Science and Medicine In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Paracelsianism, Anti Cartesianism, Paracelsian Medicine, Renaissance Alchemy, Spagyrie, Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry, Spagyria, Paracelsianismus Hermetismus Theosophy, and Médecine de la Renaissance
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Logic, Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, and 10 moreFormal Ontology, Mereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Formal Ontology (Philosophy), Husserl, Mereology, Set theory, Parts and Wholes, Mereological Ontology, History and Philosophy of Science, and Ontology and Formal Ontology
The concepts of ‘atom’ and of ‘element’ have a long and venerable history both in the history of philosophy and that of chemistry. Although both ‘atomicity’ and elementarity’ served to elucidate the fundamental nature of material... more
The concepts of ‘atom’ and of ‘element’ have a long and venerable history both in the history of philosophy and that of chemistry. Although both ‘atomicity’ and elementarity’ served to elucidate the fundamental nature of material substances both for philosophers and for chemists, these notions were not interchangeable. As well, although some early modern natural philosophers tried to reconcile 'atomicity' and 'elementarity', modern atomism was difficult to reconcile with the epistemology of experiment that developed in the work of Daniel Sennert and that motivated his rejection of Aristotelian hylomorphism.
With advent of the Chemical Revolution, Lavoisier’s desire for the development of a chemical science leads him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the nature of atoms and to focus chemical theory and experiment on the empirical isolation and quantitative description of ‘elementary’ substances, defined as the final products of chemical analysis. He thus focuses on identifying 'elements', understood as the final products of chemical analysis, rather than on speculating about the ultimate nature of matter, atomic or otherwise.
It is not until the 19th century and the work of Dalton that the concept of atom is, once again, reintroduced into chemistry and that it becomes inextricably linked to the notion of elementarity. Rather than defining elements in terms of the limits of analysis, as Lavoisier had done, Dalton defines an element as a substance that is composed entirely of atoms with identical properties. Referring to such atoms as ‘chemical atoms’ and considering these as empirical and measurable entities, Dalton considers the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms to be their relative weight. He stipulates that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the relative weights of the atoms that compose those elements.
By thus reconciling the concept of ‘atomicity’ and ‘elementarity’ and rendering both as empirical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative description, one of the central goals of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory becomes the understanding of how the relative weight of chemical atoms determines the properties of elements and of how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to form compound substances.
With advent of the Chemical Revolution, Lavoisier’s desire for the development of a chemical science leads him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the nature of atoms and to focus chemical theory and experiment on the empirical isolation and quantitative description of ‘elementary’ substances, defined as the final products of chemical analysis. He thus focuses on identifying 'elements', understood as the final products of chemical analysis, rather than on speculating about the ultimate nature of matter, atomic or otherwise.
It is not until the 19th century and the work of Dalton that the concept of atom is, once again, reintroduced into chemistry and that it becomes inextricably linked to the notion of elementarity. Rather than defining elements in terms of the limits of analysis, as Lavoisier had done, Dalton defines an element as a substance that is composed entirely of atoms with identical properties. Referring to such atoms as ‘chemical atoms’ and considering these as empirical and measurable entities, Dalton considers the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms to be their relative weight. He stipulates that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the relative weights of the atoms that compose those elements.
By thus reconciling the concept of ‘atomicity’ and ‘elementarity’ and rendering both as empirical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative description, one of the central goals of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory becomes the understanding of how the relative weight of chemical atoms determines the properties of elements and of how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to form compound substances.
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In his book, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences, Thomas Seebohm articulates the view that history can serve to mediate between the sciences of explanation and the sciences of interpretation, that is, between the natural... more
In his book, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences, Thomas Seebohm articulates the view that history can serve to mediate between the sciences of explanation and the sciences of interpretation, that is, between the natural sciences and the human sciences. Among other things, Seebohm analyzes history from a phenomenological perspective to reveal the material foundations of the historical human sciences in the lifeworld. As a preliminary to his analyses, Seebohm examines the formal and material presuppositions of phenomenological epistemology, as well as the emergence of the human sciences and the traditional distinctions and divisions that are made between the natural and the human sciences.
As part of this examination, Seebohm devotes a section to discussing Husserl’s formal mereology because he understands that a reflective analysis of the foundations of the historical sciences requires a reflective analysis of the objects of the historical sciences, that is, of concrete organic wholes (i.e., social groups) and of their parts. Seebohm concludes that Husserl’s mereological ontology needs to be altered with regard to the historical sciences because the relations between organic wholes and their parts are not summative relations. Seebohm’s conclusion is relevant for the issue of the reducibility of organic wholes such as social groups to their parts and for the issue of the reducibility of the historical sciences to the lower-order sciences, that is, to the sciences concerned with lower-order ontologies.
In this paper, I propose to extend Seebohm’s conclusion to the ontology of chemical wholes as object of quantum chemistry and to argue that Husserl’s formal mereology is descriptively inadequate for this regional ontology as well. This may seem surprising at first, since the objects studied by quantum chemists are not organic wholes. However, my discussion of atoms and molecules as they are understood in quantum chemistry will show that Husserl’s classical summative and extensional mereology does not accurately capture the relations between chemical wholes and their parts. This conclusion is relevant for the question of the reducibility of chemical wholes to their parts and of the reducibility of chemistry to physics, issues that have been of central importance within the philosophy of chemistry for the past several decades.
As part of this examination, Seebohm devotes a section to discussing Husserl’s formal mereology because he understands that a reflective analysis of the foundations of the historical sciences requires a reflective analysis of the objects of the historical sciences, that is, of concrete organic wholes (i.e., social groups) and of their parts. Seebohm concludes that Husserl’s mereological ontology needs to be altered with regard to the historical sciences because the relations between organic wholes and their parts are not summative relations. Seebohm’s conclusion is relevant for the issue of the reducibility of organic wholes such as social groups to their parts and for the issue of the reducibility of the historical sciences to the lower-order sciences, that is, to the sciences concerned with lower-order ontologies.
In this paper, I propose to extend Seebohm’s conclusion to the ontology of chemical wholes as object of quantum chemistry and to argue that Husserl’s formal mereology is descriptively inadequate for this regional ontology as well. This may seem surprising at first, since the objects studied by quantum chemists are not organic wholes. However, my discussion of atoms and molecules as they are understood in quantum chemistry will show that Husserl’s classical summative and extensional mereology does not accurately capture the relations between chemical wholes and their parts. This conclusion is relevant for the question of the reducibility of chemical wholes to their parts and of the reducibility of chemistry to physics, issues that have been of central importance within the philosophy of chemistry for the past several decades.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Edmund Husserl, Mereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, and 9 moreHusserl, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Husserlian phenomenology, Phenomenology of science, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., Topological philosophy, mereology, mereotopology., Philosophy and history of science, Scientific Realism, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Science, and Husserlian Studies
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One of several important issues that inform contemporary philosophy of chemistry is the issue of structural explanation, precisely because modern chemistry is primarily concerned with microstructure. This paper argues that concern over... more
One of several important issues that inform contemporary philosophy of chemistry is the issue of structural explanation, precisely because modern chemistry is primarily concerned with microstructure. This paper argues that concern over microstructure, albeit understood differently than it is today, also informs the chemical philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691). According to Boyle, the specific microstructure of ‘chymical atoms’, understood in geometric terms, accounts for the unique essential properties of different chemical substances. Because he considers the microstructure of ‘chymical atoms’ as semi-permanent, Boyle considers these stable entities as operationally irreducible, even if they are not ontologically fundamental. While it is generally believed that our contemporary concern over structural explanation is a function of modern chemistry’s emphasis on microstructure, this discussion of structural explanation in Boyle will serve as a case study to illustrate the manner in which many of our contemporary concerns have deeply historical origins and the manner in which the history of chemistry can substantively inform issues in contemporary philosophy of chemistry.
Research Interests: History, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, and 6 moreEarly Modern Science, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Robert Boyle, History of Chemistry, Philosophy and history of science, and Chemical Structure
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Philosophy of Chemistry, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, and 8 moreHistory and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Philosophy and history of science, History and Philosophy of Science, History of Chemistry / Alchemy, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Philosophy of Chemistry, Chymistry, and 6 moreDaniel Sennert, History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, History and Philosophy of Science, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
In this essay, I argue that nanotechnology lends itself to the same kind of phenomenological analysis as other technologies (such as nuclear reactors) in which direct epistemic access to the product of the technology is not possible due... more
In this essay, I argue that nanotechnology lends itself to the same kind of phenomenological analysis as other technologies (such as nuclear reactors) in which direct epistemic access to the product of the technology is not possible due to the nature of that product. Since there is no direct epistemic access to nanomaterials (because of their extremely small scale) and since they must be engineered and handled via mediating devices, a hermeneutic intentionality relation exists between the chemical engineer and the nanomaterials that are being ‘manipulated’. Such a hermeneutic intentionality relation, in which the chemical engineer must interpret what is happening at the nanolevel on the basis of information provided by the mediating devices, increases the probability of ‘misreading’ and of unintended exposure to nanomaterials. Since this problem may be endemic to nanotechnology as such, there is reason to be concerned about such practices from an ethical point of view, due to the toxicological and environmental effects of direct and indirect exposure to nanomaterials.
Research Interests: Chemical Engineering, Philosophy of Technology, Phenomenology, Environmental Ethics, Martin Heidegger, and 7 moreNanomaterials, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Nanotechnology, Environmental ethics (Philosophy) (Philosophy), Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, contemporary continental philosophy, axiology (theories and applied research on values), philosophical and cultural anthropology, diversity managment, gender studies, intercultural communication, and translations studies, Don Ihde, and Environmental Ethics and Environmental Issues
Research Interests: Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Platonism, Giordano Bruno, Natural Magic, Vitalism-Mechanism Debate, and 10 moreRenaissance Neoplatonists, Vitalism, Giordano Bruno and philosophers of nature, Renaissance Neo-Platonism, Renaissance Neoplatonism, Renaissance Platonism and Aristotelianism, History of Vitalism, Vitalismo, Renaissance natural philosophy, and Minima Naturalia
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Alchemy, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Neoplatonism, Early Modern Studies, and 12 moreChemical Philosophy, Chymistry, Chymie, Van Helmont, History of Chemistry, History of alchemy, Chemical Ontology, Filosofia Della Scienza, Philosophy and history of science, Storia Della Scienza, History and Philosophy of Science, and Early Modern Chemistry
This 'Guest Editorial' introduces the second part of a special issue of 'Foundations of Chemistry' featuring selected papers presented at the 20th annual symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, which was... more
This 'Guest Editorial' introduces the second part of a special issue of 'Foundations of Chemistry' featuring selected papers presented at the 20th annual symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, which was held August 1-4, 2016 in Boca Raton, Florida (U.S.A.) and was sponsored by Florida Atlantic University.
This 'Guest Editorial' introduces the first part of a special issue of 'Foundations of Chemistry' featuring selected papers presented at the 20th annual symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, which was... more
This 'Guest Editorial' introduces the first part of a special issue of 'Foundations of Chemistry' featuring selected papers presented at the 20th annual symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, which was held August 1-4, 2016 in Boca Raton, Florida (U.S.A.) and was sponsored by Florida Atlantic University.
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This paper is a transcription in French and a translation into English by Marina Banchetti of a recorded lecture by Alfred Schutz, as part of a panel of philosophers discussing their memories of Husserl at Royaumont in 1957. One memory... more
This paper is a transcription in French and a translation into English by Marina Banchetti of a recorded lecture by Alfred Schutz, as part of a panel of philosophers discussing their memories of Husserl at Royaumont in 1957. One memory recounted by Schutz concerns Husserl lecturing in Prague without notes on the dignity of philosophy. The other has to do with Schutz ordering oranges for Husserl during his final illness.
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In this essay, we argue that there exist obvious parallels between questions that inform philosophy of chemistry and the so-called hard problem of consciousness in philosophy of mind. These include questions regarding the emergence of... more
In this essay, we argue that there exist obvious parallels between questions that inform philosophy of chemistry and the so-called hard problem of consciousness in philosophy of mind. These include questions regarding the emergence of higher-level phenomena from lower-level physical states, the reduction of higher-level phenomena to lower-level physical states, and 'downward causation'. We, therefore, propose that the 'hard problem' of consciousness should be approached in a manner similar to that used to address parallel problems in philosophy of chemistry. Thus, our contribution begins by scrutinizing the ways chemists and quantum chemists think about and use different levels of organization and chemical relations and relata and then investigates the problem of 'downward causation' as it relates to the question of emergence. We demonstrate that the science of the transformation of 'substances', namely chemistry, enables us to go beyond substantialism and to develop, instead, a non-substantialist account of levels of reality. Similarly, the 'hard problem' of consciousness will require that we transcend traditional emergentism and its substantialist conception of mind. As with chemical phenomena, mental phenomena must be examined in terms of the relationality of wholes and parts, and this will require the development of a mereology that explains how parts and wholes may co-define each other. Like the non-classical and non-transitive mereology that has been proposed for quantum chemistry, an extended mereology for philosophy of mind must be one that entangles the whole, its parts, and the environment, thus rendering 'downward causation' into a relational concept. This proposal is neither a reductionist analysis that only needs the parts to define the whole, nor a merely holistic description within which the whole is necessary to define the parts. Rather, we propose that the parts, the whole, and the environment co-define each other so that our understanding of parts, wholes, and environment as independent concepts must itself be altered.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Self-Organization, Phenomenology, and 16 moreMereology, Philosophy of Chemistry, Emergence, Philosophy of Neuroscience, Philosophy of mind, consciousness, Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind (the hard problem of consciousness), Downward causation, Philosophy of Language and Mind, Nonreductive Physicalism, Are complexity, emergence and downward causation relevant?, Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness, the self and causation, Michel Bitbol, Philosophy and history of science, Reductive Materialism, and Philosophy of Natural Sciences
This essay proposes to discuss the manner in which Jan Baptista van Helmont helped to transform the Neoplatonic notions of vital spirit and of ferment by giving these notions an unambiguously chemical interpretation, thereby influencing... more
This essay proposes to discuss the manner in which Jan Baptista van Helmont helped to transform the Neoplatonic notions of vital spirit and of ferment by giving these notions an unambiguously chemical interpretation, thereby influencing the eventual naturalization of these ideas in the work of late seventeenth century chymists. This chemical interpretation of vital spirit and ferment forms part of Helmont’s hybrid ontology, which fuses a corpuscular conception of minima naturalia with a non-corporeal conception of semina rerum. For Helmont, chemical alterations involve the minima as physical units but also depend upon ferments that are contained in the semina, which function as formative spiritual agents. Helmont’s nuanced ontology ultimately contributes to the development of modern corpuscularian theory by explaining many chemical reactions in fundamentally corpuscular terms, as the addition and subtraction of particles.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, and 12 morePhilosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, Vitalism-Mechanism Debate, Chemical Philosophy, Chymistry, Van Helmont, History of Chemistry, Fermentation, Corpuscularianism, Minima Naturalia, and Spiritual Vitality of Navy Chaplains
From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes in chemical ontology from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century is the shift from a vitalistic conception of fundamental corpuscles, to a mechanistic... more
From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes in chemical ontology from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century is the shift from a vitalistic conception of fundamental corpuscles, to a mechanistic atomism, to an operational notion of chemical elements. This essay proposes to discuss some of the key figures in this ontological shift, focusing on the ideas of van Helmont, Sennert, Gassendi, Boyle, and Lavoisier. The essay examines the relationship between the work of late sixteenth century chymists and that of the mechanistic atomists to illustrate the fact that the atomistic framework of the late seventeenth century was intimately dependent upon the earlier work of vitalistic corpuscularian alchemists and chymists. In addition to tracing the influences of vitalistic corpuscularianism on the shift to a mechanistic atomistic ontology, this essay also establishes historical antecedents, in the work of Sennert and Boyle, for Lavoisier’s operational and analytical definition of chemical elements.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, History of Science, Paracelsus (Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus von Hohenheim), and 15 moreJan Baptist van Helmont, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, Chemical Philosophy, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, Paracelsus, Daniel Sennert, Lavoisier, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Chemical Ontology, Corpuscularianism, and Paracelsianism
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Cartesianism, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, and 14 morePhilosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, Emergence, Reductionism, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, Cartesian Mechanicism, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, 17th Century and Early Modern Philosophy, Chemical Ontology, Non-Reductionism, Corpuscularianism, and Chymistry and Natural Philosophy
Although Boyle has been regarded as a champion of the seventeenth century Cartesian mechanical philosophy, I defend the position that Boyle’s views conciliate between a strictly mechanistic conception of fundamental matter and a... more
Although Boyle has been regarded as a champion of the seventeenth century Cartesian mechanical philosophy, I defend the position that Boyle’s views conciliate between a strictly mechanistic conception of fundamental matter and a non-reductionist conception of chemical qualities. In particular, I argue that this conciliation is evident in Boyle’s ontological distinction between fundamental corpuscles endowed with mechanistic properties and higher-level corpuscular concretions endowed with chemical properties. Some of these points have already been acknowledged by contemporary scholars, and I actively engage with their ideas in this paper. However I attempt to contribute to the debate over Boyle’s mechanical philosophy by arguing that Boyle’s writings suggest an emergentist, albeit still mechanistic, notion of chemical properties. I contrast Boyle’s views against those of strict reductionist mechanical philosophers, focusing on the famous debate with Spinoza over the redintegration of niter, and argue that Boyle’s complex chemical ontology provides a more satisfactory understanding of chemical phenomena than is provided by a strictly reductionist and Cartesian mechanical philosophy.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Cartesianism, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, and 15 moreBaruch Spinoza, Early Modern Science, Emergentism, Emergence, Early Modern Philosophy, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, 17th Century and Early Modern Philosophy, Mechanicism, Chemical Ontology, History and Phliosophy of Science, Corpuscularianism, and Chymistry and Natural Philosophy
This essay offers a novel approach for understanding the poetry of negritude and its role in the struggle for black liberation by appealing to Giambattista Vico’s insights on the historical, cultural, and myth-making function of poetry... more
This essay offers a novel approach for understanding the poetry of negritude and its role in the struggle for black liberation by appealing to Giambattista Vico’s insights on the historical, cultural, and myth-making function of poetry and of the mythopoetic imagination. The essay begins with a discussion of Vico’s aesthetic historicism and of his ideas regarding the role of imagination, poetry, and myth-making and then brings these ideas to bear on the discussion of the function of negritude poetry, focusing primarily on the writings of Aimé Césaire and on Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, "Black Orpheus".
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The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marks a period of transition between the vitalistic ontology that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy and the Early Modern mechanistic paradigm endorsed by, among others, the Cartesians and... more
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marks a period of transition between the vitalistic ontology that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy and the Early Modern mechanistic paradigm endorsed by, among others, the Cartesians and Newtonians. This paper will focus on how the tensions between vitalism and mechanism played themselves out in the context of sixteenth and seventeenth century chemistry and chemical philosophy, particularly in the works of Paracelsus, Jan Baptista Van Helmont, Robert Fludd, and Robert Boyle. Rather than argue that these natural philosophers each embraced either fully vitalistic or fully mechanistic ontologies, I hope to demonstrate that these thinkers adhered to complicated and nuanced ontologies that cannot be described in either purely vitalistic or purely mechanistic terms. A central feature of my argument is the claim that a corpuscularian theory of matter does not entail a strictly mechanistic and reductionistic account of chemical properties. I also argue that what marks the shift from pre-modern vitalistic chemical philosophy to the modern chemical philosophy that marked the Chemical Revolution is not the victory of mechanism and reductionism in chemistry but, rather, the shift to a physicalistic and naturalistic account of chemical properties and vital spirits.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, History of Science, Paracelsus (Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus von Hohenheim), and 22 moreJan Baptist van Helmont, Cartesianism, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, Descartes, René, Early Modern Science, Vitalism-Mechanism Debate, Early Modern Philosophy, Chemical Philosophy, Vitalism, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Mechanicism, Chemical Ontology, Corpuscularianism, Sebastien Basson, Sebastian Basso, Mechanical Philosophy, Paracelsianism, and Chymistry and Natural Philosophy
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This essay contrasts the views of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Edmund Husserl with regard to the possibility of intercultural communication. Since communication occurs, among other things, through the medium of language and since the primary... more
This essay contrasts the views of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Edmund Husserl with regard to the possibility of intercultural communication. Since communication occurs, among other things, through the medium of language and since the primary unit of linguistic communication is the expression, the essay will first examine each philosopher's views on the nature of language, meaning and linguistic expressions. This discussion will be followed by a discussion of how communication occurs according to each philosopher. Lastly, the essay will discuss and contrast Wittgenstein's notion of Lebensform with Husserl's notion of Lebenswelt and will show how the notion of Lebensform, coupled with Wittgenstein's conception of language and meaning, is the one that best allows for the possibility of communication between cultures.
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Page 1. HIROSHI KOJIMA&#x27;S PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino Department of Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University Introduction In his book Monad and Thou: Phenomenological Ontology of the Human Being, ...
Research Interests: Japanese Studies, Ontology, Japanese Philosophy, Human-Animal Relations, Hermeneutics, and 16 morePhenomenology, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), Émmanuel Lévinas, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Social Ontology, Intersubjectivity, Martin Buber, Phenomenology of the body, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Ancient Philosophy, Husserl, Martin Buber (Philosophy), Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of the Subject, and Embodied Intersubjectivity
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Research Interests: Gender Studies, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy Of Religion, Feminist Philosophy, and 10 moreComputer Networks, Phenomenology, Databases, Practical Reasons and Rationality, Cognitive Sciences, Rationality, Software, High Performance Scientific Computing, Embodied and Enactive Cognition, and Science and Technology Studies
Research Interests: Metaphysics, Ontology, Medieval Philosophy, Medieval Studies, Hermeneutics, and 12 morePhenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Edmund Husserl, Ibn Sina, Ancient Philosophy, Neoplatonism, Husserl, Avicenna, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of the Subject, Islamic intellectual history, medieval political thought,Islamic philosophy and mysticism, and Neoplatonism: its Islamic and Medieval Christian manifestations
Page 1. IBN SINA AND HUSSERL ON INTENTION AND INTENTIONALITY Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino Department of Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University The concepts of intention and intentionality have enjoyed a long history within Western... more
Page 1. IBN SINA AND HUSSERL ON INTENTION AND INTENTIONALITY Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino Department of Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University The concepts of intention and intentionality have enjoyed a long history within Western philosophy. ...
Research Interests: Medieval Philosophy, Perception, Medieval Studies, Phenomenological Psychology, Hermeneutics, and 14 morePhenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Edmund Husserl, Intentionality, Ibn Sina, Ancient Philosophy, Naturalism, Intention, Avicenna, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of the Subject, Theory of Meaning, Psychologism, and Islamic Medieval Philosophy and Theology
When animals use communicative signs, do they ‘mean what they say’? That is, do they intend or endow the signs that they use with meaning? From a phenomenological perspective, the question is: “Do animals have constitutive... more
When animals use communicative signs, do they ‘mean what they say’? That is, do they intend or endow the signs that they use with meaning? From a phenomenological perspective, the question is: “Do animals have constitutive intentionality? Do they engage in what Husserl calls ‘objectifying acts’ and ‘signitive acts?” When surveying the history of philosophy for theories that attempt to address the question of zoosemiotics, we find ourselves going back to the earliest days of philosophy, as far back as ancient Greek semiotics. However, some of the most intriguing theories concerning this problem actually emerged in the Middle Ages. Of these medieval theories, the most promising seems to be that of Peter Abelard. However, although he grants that the signs used by animals have meaning, he traces the constitution of those meanings not to the animals who use the signs but to another origin. The main purpose of this essay is to examine the Abelard’s zoosemiotic theory and to critique it from a Husserlian phenomenological perspective. I choose to examine Abelard’s theory from a Husserlian perspective because Edmund Husserl’s theory of intentionality is one of the most significant to emerge from 20th century philosophy. In pursuing this task, I will do three things. First, I will examine Abelard's zoosemiotic theory. Secondly, I will critique this theory from a Husserlian standpoint. Finally, I will propose a Husserlian solution to some of the problems and issues raised during the course of these discussions. I hope to demonstrate through this analysis that, from a Husserlian perspective, when non-human animals engage in meaningful communicative behavior, they do partake of the higher, meaning-constituting sphere of intentionality. In other words, animals that communicate are not only capable of intuitive intentional acts but are also capable of objectifying signitive acts.
Research Interests: Semiotics, Medieval Philosophy, Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Biosemiotics, and 21 moreIntentionality, Cognitive Ethology, Zoosemiotics, Medieval semiotics, Philosophy of Cognitive Ethology, Medieval Theories of Signification, Animal communication, Husserlian phenomenology, Zoosemiotics (Biology), Animal Consciousness, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, contemporary continental philosophy, axiology (theories and applied research on values), philosophical and cultural anthropology, diversity managment, gender studies, intercultural communication, and translations studies, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Peter Abelard, Animal Minds, Beliefs, Intentionality, Intentional Stance, Animal Beliefs, Animal Minds, Foundations for Biosemiotics, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Husserlian Phenomenology, Leibniz and Kant's epistemological reflections. Wittgenstein, Cognition and communication in human and nonhuman animals, Theories of signification, Constitutive Intentionality, and Constitutive Phenomenology
The purpose of this essay is to engage in a critical analysis of F.J.J. Buytendijk’s book Woman: A Contemporary View,1 in which Buytendijk claims to conduct a phenomenological study of woman which, both in structure and scope, parallels... more
The purpose of this essay is to engage in a critical analysis of F.J.J. Buytendijk’s book Woman: A Contemporary View,1 in which Buytendijk claims to conduct a phenomenological study of woman which, both in structure and scope, parallels Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.2 I shall begin by first discussing Buytendijk’s criticism of Beauvoir3 and of her existential phenomenological approach to the problem of woman. Following this, Buytendijk’s own conclusions regarding the mystery of “femininity” and how it is manifested in woman will be discussed.
Research Interests: Feminist Theory, Feminist Philosophy, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Feminist Phenomenology, and 9 moreContinental Philosophy, French Feminism, Simone de Beauvoir, Ancient Philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir (Philosophy), French phenomenology: Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste and Emmanuel Levinas. Husserl and Heidegger., Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of the Subject, and Woman by choice, a comment on Simone de Beauvoir’s famous phrase ‘a woman is not born but made
Research Interests: Political Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Environmental Philosophy, Bioethics, and 19 moreViolence, Environmental Studies, Sustainable Development, Social Justice, Environmental Ethics, Martin Heidegger, Ecology, Conflict Resolution, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Heidegger, Environmental Sustainability, Nuclear Energy, Postphenomenology, War, Peace, Nuclear Disarmament, Don Ihde, WMD proliferation, and Technology critique
Review of Michelle DiMeo, "Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle's Sister" (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2021)
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Women's History, Early Modern History, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Early Modern Science, and 12 moreThe Royal Society, Women in Science, Women in Science, Technology and Engineering, Women in Science and Engineering, Robert Boyle, Hartlib Circle, Royal Society, Samuel Hartlib, Early Royal Society, Early Modern Chemistry, The Hartlib Circle, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
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The 19th annual meeting of the Phenomenology Roundtable will be held from Friday, May 24 to Sunday, May 26, 2019 in beautiful Boca Raton, Florida (USA), on the campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU Boca Raton). Please see the... more
The 19th annual meeting of the Phenomenology Roundtable will be held from Friday, May 24 to Sunday, May 26, 2019 in beautiful Boca Raton, Florida (USA), on the campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU Boca Raton).
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/site/husserl2019/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/site/husserl2019/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
Research Interests: Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Husserl, Husserlian phenomenology, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, contemporary continental philosophy, axiology (theories and applied research on values), philosophical and cultural anthropology, diversity managment, gender studies, intercultural communication, and translations studies, and 3 moreContemporary Continental Philosophy, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Husserlian Phenomenology, Leibniz and Kant's epistemological reflections. Wittgenstein, and Husserlian Phenomenology and Contemporary Continental Philosophy
The International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry (ISPC) Summer Symposium 2016, which is the society’s 20th annual meeting, will be held August 1-4, 2016 at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Florida (U.S.A.) Keynote... more
The International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry (ISPC) Summer Symposium 2016, which is the society’s 20th annual meeting, will be held August 1-4, 2016 at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Florida (U.S.A.)
Keynote Speakers:
• Manuel DeLanda (European Graduate School / Princeton University), author of "Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field" (2015).
• Eric R. Scerri (University of California, Los Angeles), author of "A Tale of Seven Elements" (2013)
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/a/fau.edu/ispc2016/ or https://sites.google.com/site/ispc2016/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
Keynote Speakers:
• Manuel DeLanda (European Graduate School / Princeton University), author of "Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field" (2015).
• Eric R. Scerri (University of California, Los Angeles), author of "A Tale of Seven Elements" (2013)
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/a/fau.edu/ispc2016/ or https://sites.google.com/site/ispc2016/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
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This presentation examines whether classical extensional mereology can serve as an adequate formalizing approach for understanding the whole-parts relations in quantum chemical systems. The question of which mereology is appropriate for... more
This presentation examines whether classical extensional mereology can serve as an adequate formalizing approach for understanding the whole-parts relations in quantum chemical systems. The question of which mereology is appropriate for formalizing such whole-parts relations is relevant because this question is related to the more general issue of the reducibility of chemical wholes to their parts and, thus, of whether the laws that govern quantum chemical systems are themselves reducible to the laws that govern the parts of such system. Thus, these questions also relate to issue of whether chemistry is at least theoretically reducible to physics, an issue that has been of central importance to the philosophy of chemistry for several decades. To answer these questions, this presentation will situate contemporary discussions of mereology within the philosophy of chemistry into their broader historical and philosophical context. In doing so, this presentation also bridges the gap between formal mereology, conceived as a branch of formal ontology, and “applied” mereology conceived as a branch of the philosophy of science.
This presentation argues that classical extensional and summative mereology cannot in fact adequately describe the whole–parts relations within higher-order wholes, in which the properties of the whole cannot be formalized as a simple summation of the properties of the individual parts.
I wish to propose that the behavioral mereology by Fong, Myers, and Spivak is a promising candidate for the type of non-standard mereology that can accommodate the context-dependence of whole/parts relations within quantum chemical systems. According to behavioral mereology, considerations of what constitutes a part of a whole are dependent upon the observable behavior displayed by these entities. Thus, relationality and context-dependence are stipulated from the outset and this makes behavioral mereology particularly well-suited for formalizing whole-parts relations in quantum chemical wholes.
This presentation argues that classical extensional and summative mereology cannot in fact adequately describe the whole–parts relations within higher-order wholes, in which the properties of the whole cannot be formalized as a simple summation of the properties of the individual parts.
I wish to propose that the behavioral mereology by Fong, Myers, and Spivak is a promising candidate for the type of non-standard mereology that can accommodate the context-dependence of whole/parts relations within quantum chemical systems. According to behavioral mereology, considerations of what constitutes a part of a whole are dependent upon the observable behavior displayed by these entities. Thus, relationality and context-dependence are stipulated from the outset and this makes behavioral mereology particularly well-suited for formalizing whole-parts relations in quantum chemical wholes.
Research Interests:
Presented at Jornadas de Fundamentos de Química, CONICET (Universidad de Buenos Aires), December 15, 2020.
Research Interests:
From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes that occurred in chemical philosophy from the late 16th to the 17th century is the shift from the vitalistic metaphysics that had dominated Renaissance natural... more
From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes that occurred in chemical philosophy from the late 16th to the 17th century is the shift from the vitalistic metaphysics that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy to the mechanistic theory of matter championed by the Cartesians and Newtonians.
The shift away from vitalism and toward mechanicism was gradual rather than abrupt, and aspects of vitalism and of mechanicism coexisted in interesting ways within the chemical ontologies of many early modern chymists. In spite of the tensions between these two opposing metaphysical paradigms, one important thread that connects early modern chymical theories, whether vitalistic or mechanistic, is their ontological commitment to corpuscular theories of matter.
The historical process whereby ancient Democritean atomism was revived in the 16th century is quite complex, but it would be a mistake to assume that particulate theories of matter need imply a commitment to physicalism and mechanicism. In fact, although the atomism of such natural philosophers as Gassendi and Charleton was indeed mechanistic, one finds many examples of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern that embraced vitalistic metaphysics while endorsing a corpuscularian theory of matter.
As it happens, there is strong evidence to show that, for much of the 17th century, chemical philosophers adopted a view of matter that was both ontologically corpuscularian and metaphysically vitalistic. In other words, these chemical philosophers adhered to a particulate matter theory while also embracing the idea that chemical qualities and operations involved the action of vital spirits and ferments.
This presentation examines these ideas by focusing on some of the more significant transitional chemical philosophies of the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to establish how chymists at this time adhered to complex corpuscularian ontologies that could not be subsumed under either a purely vitalistic or a purely mechanistic metaphysical framework.
To this end, I will focus on the chemical philosophies of Jan Baptista van Helmont, Daniel Sennert, Sebastian Basso, and Pierre Gassendi and the contributions that each of these important figures made to the subtle and graduate shift from vitalism to mechanicism.
I also hope to show that the demise of vitalistic metaphysics did not result from the victory of reductionistic mechanicism but, rather, from the physicalistic and naturalistic rationalization of chemical qualities and processes that opened the door for Lavoisier to articulate his quantitative and operational conception of simple substances.
The shift away from vitalism and toward mechanicism was gradual rather than abrupt, and aspects of vitalism and of mechanicism coexisted in interesting ways within the chemical ontologies of many early modern chymists. In spite of the tensions between these two opposing metaphysical paradigms, one important thread that connects early modern chymical theories, whether vitalistic or mechanistic, is their ontological commitment to corpuscular theories of matter.
The historical process whereby ancient Democritean atomism was revived in the 16th century is quite complex, but it would be a mistake to assume that particulate theories of matter need imply a commitment to physicalism and mechanicism. In fact, although the atomism of such natural philosophers as Gassendi and Charleton was indeed mechanistic, one finds many examples of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern that embraced vitalistic metaphysics while endorsing a corpuscularian theory of matter.
As it happens, there is strong evidence to show that, for much of the 17th century, chemical philosophers adopted a view of matter that was both ontologically corpuscularian and metaphysically vitalistic. In other words, these chemical philosophers adhered to a particulate matter theory while also embracing the idea that chemical qualities and operations involved the action of vital spirits and ferments.
This presentation examines these ideas by focusing on some of the more significant transitional chemical philosophies of the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to establish how chymists at this time adhered to complex corpuscularian ontologies that could not be subsumed under either a purely vitalistic or a purely mechanistic metaphysical framework.
To this end, I will focus on the chemical philosophies of Jan Baptista van Helmont, Daniel Sennert, Sebastian Basso, and Pierre Gassendi and the contributions that each of these important figures made to the subtle and graduate shift from vitalism to mechanicism.
I also hope to show that the demise of vitalistic metaphysics did not result from the victory of reductionistic mechanicism but, rather, from the physicalistic and naturalistic rationalization of chemical qualities and processes that opened the door for Lavoisier to articulate his quantitative and operational conception of simple substances.
Research Interests: Alchemy, History of Atomism, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Chemical Philosophy, Vitalism, and 13 moreAtomism, Chymistry, Daniel Sennert, Cartesian Mechanicism, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, History of alchemy, Mechanicism, Corpuscularianism, Mechanical Philosophy, History of Vitalism, Early Modern Chemistry, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Early Modern Alchemy and Chemistry
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in August 2002 in Johannesburg, an organization called ETC Group (Erosion, Technology, and Concentration) called for a moratorium on the environmental release and commercial... more
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in August 2002 in Johannesburg, an organization called ETC Group (Erosion, Technology, and Concentration) called for a moratorium on the environmental release and commercial use of nanomaterials. They called for a ban on self-assembling nanomaterials and for a ban on patents for nanoscale technologies. The reason given by ETC Group for this concerns the long-term and, perhaps, irreversible damage that can be caused by releasing engineered nanomaterials into the environment, whether for commercial, medical, or other purposes. A 2004 report commissioned by the European Parliament also recommended that engineered nanoparticles should not be released into the environment. However, concern over the safety of nanomaterials is not limited to their impact on the environment since, due to some of their size-dependent unique properties, nanomaterials are also being used in biomedicine and in a multitude of consumer products. In addition to being concerned over the safety of these materials once they are taken into the world outside of the laboratory in which they are manufactured, one must also be concerned about their safety of handling nanomaterials for the chemical engineers who manipulate them in the laboratory. The ability to handle nanomaterials safely in the laboratory depends upon the ability to control these materials and control depends upon having epistemic access to these materials.
Although quite a bit has been written by philosophers of chemistry about the ontology of nanomaterials, this paper proposes to address the question of epistemic access to nanomaterials. This question will be addressed from the perspective of the phenomenology of technology, since this approach can provide important insights regarding nanotechnology’s ability to yield transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials. In fact, I will argue that nanotechnology lends itself to the same sort of phenomenological analysis as other technologies (such as nuclear reactors) in which direct epistemic access to the product of the technology is not possible due to the nature and/or features of that product. To argue this point, I will consider what philosophers of chemistry have proposed regarding the ontology of nanomaterials, since ontological questions affect whether or not transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials is possible at all. I will conclude that, in the case of nanotechnology, direct epistemic access is not possible because of the extremely small scale of nanomaterials, which must therefore be engineered and handled via mediating devices.
I will argue that this ‘mediated access’ creates a relation between the chemical engineer and the engineered nanomaterials that requires the chemical engineer to infer what is happening at the nanoscale by interpreting the information provided by mediating devices. Because of this interpretive inference, the epistemic relation between the engineer and the engineered product is referred to as a ‘hermeneutic intentionality relation’. However, the indirect and interpretive nature of this epistemic relation increases the probability of ‘misreading’ what is occurring at the nanoscale and of unintended exposure to the nanomaterials being manipulated. Due to the nature of the technology and of the engineered materials, the problem of indirect epistemic access and of possible misinterpretation are problems that are inherent to nanotechnology itself and that persists regardless of how the methods for handling nanoproducts are modified. This analysis will conclude that, from the standpoint of safety, there are serious reasons for concern regarding nanotechnology due to the toxicological and environmental effects that may result from accidental direct or indirect exposure to nanomaterials. These concerns stem from the fact that, among other things, the phenomenological limits of the epistemic access is endemic to nanotechnology itself.
Although quite a bit has been written by philosophers of chemistry about the ontology of nanomaterials, this paper proposes to address the question of epistemic access to nanomaterials. This question will be addressed from the perspective of the phenomenology of technology, since this approach can provide important insights regarding nanotechnology’s ability to yield transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials. In fact, I will argue that nanotechnology lends itself to the same sort of phenomenological analysis as other technologies (such as nuclear reactors) in which direct epistemic access to the product of the technology is not possible due to the nature and/or features of that product. To argue this point, I will consider what philosophers of chemistry have proposed regarding the ontology of nanomaterials, since ontological questions affect whether or not transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials is possible at all. I will conclude that, in the case of nanotechnology, direct epistemic access is not possible because of the extremely small scale of nanomaterials, which must therefore be engineered and handled via mediating devices.
I will argue that this ‘mediated access’ creates a relation between the chemical engineer and the engineered nanomaterials that requires the chemical engineer to infer what is happening at the nanoscale by interpreting the information provided by mediating devices. Because of this interpretive inference, the epistemic relation between the engineer and the engineered product is referred to as a ‘hermeneutic intentionality relation’. However, the indirect and interpretive nature of this epistemic relation increases the probability of ‘misreading’ what is occurring at the nanoscale and of unintended exposure to the nanomaterials being manipulated. Due to the nature of the technology and of the engineered materials, the problem of indirect epistemic access and of possible misinterpretation are problems that are inherent to nanotechnology itself and that persists regardless of how the methods for handling nanoproducts are modified. This analysis will conclude that, from the standpoint of safety, there are serious reasons for concern regarding nanotechnology due to the toxicological and environmental effects that may result from accidental direct or indirect exposure to nanomaterials. These concerns stem from the fact that, among other things, the phenomenological limits of the epistemic access is endemic to nanotechnology itself.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Philosophy of Technology, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and 10 moreNanomaterials, Philosophy of Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Husserlian phenomenology, Technoscience, Don Ihde, Ethics and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Engineering, Nanoscience, Phenomenology of science, and Phenomenology of Technics
Recent scholarship by historians and philosophers of chemistry such as William Newman, Bernard Joly, Antonio Clericuzio, Peter Anstey and others, suggests that, although Robert Boyle is regarded as one of the strongest proponents of the... more
Recent scholarship by historians and philosophers of chemistry such as William Newman, Bernard Joly, Antonio Clericuzio, Peter Anstey and others, suggests that, although Robert Boyle is regarded as one of the strongest proponents of the mechanistic theory of matter and regards chemical qualities as ontologically dependent upon mechanical properties, he refrains "from establishing a direct relationship between a given quality and a set of mechanical properties of the simplest corpuscles" and he is openly critical of Epicureans and Cartesians who "pretend to explicate every particular Phaenomenon by deducing it from the Mechanicall affections of Atomes or insensible particles." Although Boyle is a proponent of the mechanical philosophy, he is also a realist about chemical and other non-mechanical properties and he is strongly committed to the development of chemical, rather than mechanistic, explanations for reactions and processes.
In fact, he does not believe that chemical reactions occur at the fundamental level of particles but that they take place between corpuscular concretions that are differentiated by means of their chemical properties. He calls such corpuscular concretions 'chymical atoms' because he regards them as semi-stable entities that cannot be further reduced by the methods of chemical analysis of his time. For Boyle, differentiation among chemical properties does not originate directly in the mechanical properties of the fundamental particles but in the texture or micro-structure of the 'chymical atoms' involved in a reaction.
What I hope to demonstrate here is that, although Boyle regards micro-structure itself as a mechanical property of chymical atoms, he is not a strict reductionist with regard to chemical properties. To make this argument, I discuss the hierarchy of properties in Boyle's chemical ontology, his view of chemical properties as dispositional and relational, and finally his view of chemical properties as emergent, supervenient, and ontologically underdetermined. I support these arguments with a significant number of excerpts from Boyle's writings that indicate an emergentist view of chemical properties, although he obviously does not use our own contemporary vocabulary to articulate this emergentist position.
In fact, he does not believe that chemical reactions occur at the fundamental level of particles but that they take place between corpuscular concretions that are differentiated by means of their chemical properties. He calls such corpuscular concretions 'chymical atoms' because he regards them as semi-stable entities that cannot be further reduced by the methods of chemical analysis of his time. For Boyle, differentiation among chemical properties does not originate directly in the mechanical properties of the fundamental particles but in the texture or micro-structure of the 'chymical atoms' involved in a reaction.
What I hope to demonstrate here is that, although Boyle regards micro-structure itself as a mechanical property of chymical atoms, he is not a strict reductionist with regard to chemical properties. To make this argument, I discuss the hierarchy of properties in Boyle's chemical ontology, his view of chemical properties as dispositional and relational, and finally his view of chemical properties as emergent, supervenient, and ontologically underdetermined. I support these arguments with a significant number of excerpts from Boyle's writings that indicate an emergentist view of chemical properties, although he obviously does not use our own contemporary vocabulary to articulate this emergentist position.
Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Philosophy of Chemistry, Emergence, and 10 moreSupervenience, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Mechanicism, Dispositional Properties, Mechanical Philosophy, Philosophy and history of science, Chemical Properties, and Relational Properties
This poster presentation is based on the chapter "Reality Without Reification: Philosophy of Chemistry's Contribution to the Philosophy of Mind" (Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry, Oxford University Press, 2016). The relationality... more
This poster presentation is based on the chapter "Reality Without Reification: Philosophy of Chemistry's Contribution to the Philosophy of Mind" (Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry, Oxford University Press, 2016). The relationality of quantum chemical systems and their properties sheds light on the interdependence and relationality of brain and consciousness and on the irreducibility and ‘downward’ causal efficacy of higher-level properties of complex systems like the brain. Neither chemical wholes and their properties nor the brain as a complex system and its mental states can be simplistically reduced to lower-level physical states.
Research Interests:
The concepts of ‘atom’ and of ‘element’ have a long and venerable history both in the history of philosophy and that of chemistry. Although both ‘atomicity’ and elementarity’ served to elucidate the fundamental nature of material... more
The concepts of ‘atom’ and of ‘element’ have a long and venerable history both in the history of philosophy and that of chemistry. Although both ‘atomicity’ and elementarity’ served to elucidate the fundamental nature of material substances both for philosophers and for chemists, these notions were never interchangeable since they were grounded in different conceptions of fundamentality.
While, in its early history, the concept of element referred to empirical substances that were believed to constitute every other material substance, the notion of atom referred to absolutely fundamental entities that marked the limits of any possible reduction and that, as such, could not ever be experience or measured.
In spite of the early modern rehabilitation of atomicity as a chymical concept, this notion falls by the wayside once more during the Chemical Revolution, as Lavoisier’s desire for the development of a chemical science leads him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the nature of atoms and to focus chemical theory and experiment on the empirical isolation and quantitative description of ‘elementary’ substances, defined as the final products of chemical analysis.
It is not until the 19th century and the work of Dalton that the concept of atom is, once again, reintroduced into chemistry and that it becomes inextricably linked to the notion of elementarity. Rather than defining elements in terms of the limits of analysis, as Lavoisier had done, Dalton defines an element as a substance that is composed entirely of atoms with identical properties. Referring to such atoms as ‘chemical atoms’ and considering these as empirical and measurable entities, Dalton considers the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms to be their relative weight. He stipulates that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the relative weights of the atoms that compose those elements.
By thus reconciling the concept of ‘atomicity’ and ‘elementarity’ and rendering both as empirical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative description, one of the central goals of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory becomes the understanding of how the relative weight of chemical atoms determines the properties of elements and of how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to form compound substances.
While, in its early history, the concept of element referred to empirical substances that were believed to constitute every other material substance, the notion of atom referred to absolutely fundamental entities that marked the limits of any possible reduction and that, as such, could not ever be experience or measured.
In spite of the early modern rehabilitation of atomicity as a chymical concept, this notion falls by the wayside once more during the Chemical Revolution, as Lavoisier’s desire for the development of a chemical science leads him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the nature of atoms and to focus chemical theory and experiment on the empirical isolation and quantitative description of ‘elementary’ substances, defined as the final products of chemical analysis.
It is not until the 19th century and the work of Dalton that the concept of atom is, once again, reintroduced into chemistry and that it becomes inextricably linked to the notion of elementarity. Rather than defining elements in terms of the limits of analysis, as Lavoisier had done, Dalton defines an element as a substance that is composed entirely of atoms with identical properties. Referring to such atoms as ‘chemical atoms’ and considering these as empirical and measurable entities, Dalton considers the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms to be their relative weight. He stipulates that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the relative weights of the atoms that compose those elements.
By thus reconciling the concept of ‘atomicity’ and ‘elementarity’ and rendering both as empirical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative description, one of the central goals of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory becomes the understanding of how the relative weight of chemical atoms determines the properties of elements and of how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to form compound substances.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Atomism, Philosophy of Chemistry, Atomism, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., and 7 moreHistory of Chemistry, Chemical Ontology, Philosophy and history of science, Chemical Elements, Chemical Revolution, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton
This paper examines the way in which the chymical philosophy of Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) mediates between the strictly Aristotelian and the strictly Democritean theories of matter by modifying the notion of substantial form and by... more
This paper examines the way in which the chymical philosophy of Daniel Sennert (1572-1637) mediates between the strictly Aristotelian and the strictly Democritean theories of matter by modifying the notion of substantial form and by emplying an operational definition of substances as the limits attained by the analytical method of the laboratory. Sennert appropriates this ‘negative-empirical concept’, as Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers have called it, from the tradition of Scholastic alchemy. This negative-empirical concept acquires particular explanatory significance in the context of one of Sennert’s most influential experimental procedures, the reduction to the pristine state. Sennert’s explanation of the observable results of this experiment shows the interplay between structural and substantial explanations, since he appeals both to microstructure and to chymical properties that originate in the substantial form of corpuscles. Sennert’s works is influential in many important ways. First of all, it clearly belongs to the transitional phase between the theory of substantial form and the purely mechanistic corpuscular theory of matter. Secondly, his work anticipates the important role that the notion of structure and the idea of negative-empirical concepts would play in later early modern chemistry. Finally, the ‘reduction to the pristine state’ would later be used by early modern chemists to accommodate the mechanistic theory of matter to the notion of chemical properties. The paper concludes by examining some of the limitations of Sennert’s approach such as, for example, the difficulty of sustaining the notion of substantial form within genuinely chemical explanations.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Alchemy, Early Modern Science, Chymistry, and 10 moreDaniel Sennert, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Philosophy and history of science, History of Philosophy of Science (Especially Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism), The Impact of Alchemical Natural Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and History of Alchemy and Chemistry
One of several important issues that inform contemporary philosophy of chemistry is the issue of structural explanation, precisely because modern chemistry is primarily concerned with microstructure. With the discovery of isomerism in... more
One of several important issues that inform contemporary philosophy of chemistry is the issue of structural explanation, precisely because modern chemistry is primarily concerned with microstructure. With the discovery of isomerism in the 1830’s, chemists shifted the focus away from the elemental composition of substances and began to focus, instead, on how distinct structural formulas could represent substances that are compositionally equal but that display entirely different chemical properties. This is what distinguishes contemporary chemistry from chemistry as it was practiced and theorized prior to the early 19th century, when the focus was placed, instead, on elemental and atomic composition.
What this paper wishes to argue, however, is that concern over microstructure, albeit understood differently than it is today, also informs the chemical philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691). Boyle’s conception of microstructure is an attempt to reconcile the notion that universal matter uniformly consists of indivisible fundamental corpuscles endowed with exclusively mechanical affections with the seemingly incompatible notion that different species of matter (gold, lead, silver, etc.) exist in nature and have unique essential and chemical properties that distinguish them from other species and that these properties remain unaltered by merely mechanical changes to material bodies. To reconcile these two notions, Boyle claims that each species of matter consists of complex structural aggregations of fundamental particles that he refers to as ‘chymical atoms’. The specific microstructure of these ‘chymical atoms’, understood in geometric terms, accounts for the unique essential properties of different substances. For Boyle, since such properties are causally efficacious in chemical reactions, they are chemical properties. According to Boyle, to the extent that the essential properties of a substance resist alteration even by the most powerful means of chemical analysis of his time, the microstructure of its ‘chymical atoms’ must be semi-permanent. Thus, ‘chymical atoms’ are stable entities that are operationally irreducible, even if they are not ontologically fundamental. Boyle employs several experiments to establish the stability of ‘chymical atoms’, the most important and effective of which is the reduction to the pristine state. Therefore, although Boyle adheres to the mechanical philosophy regarding ontologically fundamental corpuscles, he also holds a structural theory of matter that allows him to explain the stability of corpuscular aggregations and the causal efficacy of chemical properties in a manner not allowed by a strictly reductionist mechanical philosophy.
Thus, while it is generally believed that our contemporary concern over structural explanation is a function of modern chemistry’s emphasis on microstructure, this discussion of structural explanation in Boyle will serve as a case study to illustrate the manner in which many of our contemporary concerns have deeply historical origins and the manner in which the history of chemistry can substantively inform issues in contemporary philosophy of chemistry.
What this paper wishes to argue, however, is that concern over microstructure, albeit understood differently than it is today, also informs the chemical philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691). Boyle’s conception of microstructure is an attempt to reconcile the notion that universal matter uniformly consists of indivisible fundamental corpuscles endowed with exclusively mechanical affections with the seemingly incompatible notion that different species of matter (gold, lead, silver, etc.) exist in nature and have unique essential and chemical properties that distinguish them from other species and that these properties remain unaltered by merely mechanical changes to material bodies. To reconcile these two notions, Boyle claims that each species of matter consists of complex structural aggregations of fundamental particles that he refers to as ‘chymical atoms’. The specific microstructure of these ‘chymical atoms’, understood in geometric terms, accounts for the unique essential properties of different substances. For Boyle, since such properties are causally efficacious in chemical reactions, they are chemical properties. According to Boyle, to the extent that the essential properties of a substance resist alteration even by the most powerful means of chemical analysis of his time, the microstructure of its ‘chymical atoms’ must be semi-permanent. Thus, ‘chymical atoms’ are stable entities that are operationally irreducible, even if they are not ontologically fundamental. Boyle employs several experiments to establish the stability of ‘chymical atoms’, the most important and effective of which is the reduction to the pristine state. Therefore, although Boyle adheres to the mechanical philosophy regarding ontologically fundamental corpuscles, he also holds a structural theory of matter that allows him to explain the stability of corpuscular aggregations and the causal efficacy of chemical properties in a manner not allowed by a strictly reductionist mechanical philosophy.
Thus, while it is generally believed that our contemporary concern over structural explanation is a function of modern chemistry’s emphasis on microstructure, this discussion of structural explanation in Boyle will serve as a case study to illustrate the manner in which many of our contemporary concerns have deeply historical origins and the manner in which the history of chemistry can substantively inform issues in contemporary philosophy of chemistry.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, History of Science, John Locke, Natural Kinds, and 14 moreHistory and philosophy of science (History), Reductionism, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Corpuscularianism, Metaphysics of Natural Kinds, Early Modern Chemistry, Chemical Microstructure, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Mechanistic Philosophy
The Neoplatonic vitalism that informed Renaissance culture dominated much of 14th and 15th century natural philosophy and its ontology. Lingering elements of this ontology, particularly the notions of spirit and ferment conceived in... more
The Neoplatonic vitalism that informed Renaissance culture dominated much of 14th and 15th century natural philosophy and its ontology. Lingering elements of this ontology, particularly the notions of spirit and ferment conceived in vitalistic terms, continued to resonate in the 16th and 17th centuries. This paper proposes to discuss the manner in which the work of the chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont (1580-1644) helped to transform the notions of spirit and ferment by giving these notions an unambiguously chemical interpretation, thereby influencing the eventual naturalization of these ideas in the work of late 17th century chemists. Helmont’s chemical interpretation of spirit and ferment is central to his hybrid ontology, which combines atomism with vitalism by embracing both the notions of corpuscular minima naturalia and non-corporeal semina rerum, understood as the formative principles from which all bodies originate. For Helmont, although minima are physical units with mechanical properties, they nevertheless also have ‘qualitative’ determinations that are accounted for via the semina. Seminal principles work in tandem with ferments to bring about substantial changes in nature by providing the spiritual force of action that causes chemical alterations. With this nuanced ontology, Helmont purports to explain the origin of all substances and all phenomena in nature. His ideas significantly contributed to the development of modern corpuscularian theory and to the chemical theory of fermentation and were extremely influential for the work of other important chemists, such as George Starkey and Robert Boyle. In particular, Helmont stresses the unambiguously chemical, albeit still vitalistic, interpretation of spirit and ferment. Once the important role of these ideas within early modern chemical philosophy was established, as it was by Helmont, it would not be long these notions to be fully naturalized by later chemist who interpreted them in strictly physicalistic terms.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Alchemy, Jan Baptist van Helmont, Chemical Philosophy, Chymistry, and 4 moreHistory and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., Van Helmont, History of Chemistry, and Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy
This paper addresses the fundamental disagreement between the views of Antoine Lavoisier and John Dalton regarding the scientific and epistemic value of positing indivisible atoms as the most simple and fundamental particles of matter.... more
This paper addresses the fundamental disagreement between the views of Antoine Lavoisier and John Dalton regarding the scientific and epistemic value of positing indivisible atoms as the most simple and fundamental particles of matter. Lavoisier rejects the epistemic value of such positing and considers it to be mere metaphysical speculation. His emphasis on both empirical data and quantitative analysis greatly influences his position on this issue. In his view, since atoms have no empirically determinable or quantifiable properties, they contribute nothing to actual experimental work or to the chemist’s understanding of chemical elements. Thus, for Lavoisier, the term ‘element’ should not be applied to atoms or to fundamental particles, which he considers to be suspect metaphysical entities. Instead, by ‘element’, Lavoisier means those substances that remain as the last product of chemical analysis.
John Dalton, on the other hand, seeks to establish an empirical link between ‘elements’ and ‘atoms’, through the notion of ‘chemical atom’. The challenge for Dalton, however, is to avoid any metaphysical implications in his atomism by employing the experimental and quantitative criteria advanced by Lavoisier. Dalton purports to establish that chemical atoms are empirical entities, that is, that they have empirical and quantifiable features that can be experimentally determined. For Dalton, the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms is their weight. Dalton claims that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the atoms that compose those elements. His chemical atomic theory seeks, among other things, to establish how the atoms of different elements combine to form compounds. He concludes that atoms of different weights combine differently, according to specific laws of proportion, to form the different elements.
What this paper seeks to establish is that, despite its flaws, Dalton’s chemical atomism represents the first major attempt at reconciling the empirical and quantitative criteria of modern chemistry with the long-standing theory of discrete particles that account for the fundamental nature of substances. With the support of experiment, analysis, and quantitative data regarding weights, Dalton establishes that chemical atoms have a demonstrable empirical status and are not, as Lavoisier had believed, suspect metaphysical entities.
John Dalton, on the other hand, seeks to establish an empirical link between ‘elements’ and ‘atoms’, through the notion of ‘chemical atom’. The challenge for Dalton, however, is to avoid any metaphysical implications in his atomism by employing the experimental and quantitative criteria advanced by Lavoisier. Dalton purports to establish that chemical atoms are empirical entities, that is, that they have empirical and quantifiable features that can be experimentally determined. For Dalton, the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms is their weight. Dalton claims that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the atoms that compose those elements. His chemical atomic theory seeks, among other things, to establish how the atoms of different elements combine to form compounds. He concludes that atoms of different weights combine differently, according to specific laws of proportion, to form the different elements.
What this paper seeks to establish is that, despite its flaws, Dalton’s chemical atomism represents the first major attempt at reconciling the empirical and quantitative criteria of modern chemistry with the long-standing theory of discrete particles that account for the fundamental nature of substances. With the support of experiment, analysis, and quantitative data regarding weights, Dalton establishes that chemical atoms have a demonstrable empirical status and are not, as Lavoisier had believed, suspect metaphysical entities.
Research Interests:
This presentation will examine the manner in which Robert Boyle was able to reconcile the notion that all matter fundamentally consists of indivisible corpuscles (prima naturalia) that have the universal and strictly mechanical primary... more
This presentation will examine the manner in which Robert Boyle was able to reconcile the notion that all matter fundamentally consists of indivisible corpuscles (prima naturalia) that have the universal and strictly mechanical primary properties of shape, size, and motion, while at the same time holding that different species of matter (gold, lead, silver, etc.) have unique and essential properties that distinguish them from other species of matter and that remain unaltered by superficial physical changes. To reconcile these two positions, Boyle claimed that each species of matter consists of complex corpuscles that are aggregations of prima naturalia, and that the essential structure of the aggregation accounts for the essential properties that are unique to that species. Besides essential properties, however, species of matter also display properties (such as color, for example) that are not unique to those species and that are, therefore, considered extraessential properties that can undergo alteration by means of superficial textural changes. To the extent that the essential properties of a corpuscular aggregation remains unaltered by superficial changes to its texture, Boyle claims that the primary aggregate corpuscles of a species of matter are semipermanent. To support these claims with experimental evidence, Boyle employs the chemical procedure of “reduction to the pristine state”, which he inherits from the Scholastic German chymist Daniel Sennert. Though Sennert had employed this procedure to lend empirical support the Aristotelian notion of substantial form, Boyle’s goal in employing the same procedure is to demonstrate both that there are such things as semipermanent aggregate corpuscles with essential secondary properties and that these secondary properties are fundamentally mechanical. While remaining informed by the recent lively debates over the nature of Boyle’s ideas regarding corpuscular species, primary and secondary qualities, and the mechanical philosophy, the presentation will discuss in detail the distinctions made by Boyle between the mechanical properties of prima naturalia and the essential chemical properties of primary aggregate corpuscles, the procedure of “reduction to the pristine state”, and the manner in which it was employed by Boyle to support both the fundamentally mechanistic nature of all properties but also the existence of primary aggregate corpuscles that are semipermanent. To use Sennert’s terminology, they are “minima of their own genus” and perform, in Boyle’s mechanical philosophy, the role played by substantial form in Sennert’s chymistry.
Research Interests: History and Philosophy of Chemistry, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., History of Chemistry, and Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy
When animals use communicative signs, do they ‘mean what they say’? That is, do they intend or endow the signs that they use with meaning? From a phenomenological perspective, the question is: “Do animals have constitutive... more
When animals use communicative signs, do they ‘mean what they say’? That is, do they intend or endow the signs that they use with meaning? From a phenomenological perspective, the question is: “Do animals have constitutive intentionality? Do they engage in what Husserl calls ‘objectifying acts’ and ‘signitive acts?” When surveying the history of philosophy for theories that attempt to address the question of zoosemiotics, we find ourselves going back to the earliest days of philosophy, as far back as ancient Greek semiotics. However, some of the most intriguing theories concerning this problem actually emerged in the Middle Ages. Of these medieval theories, the most promising seems to be that of Peter Abelard. However, although he grants that the signs used by animals have meaning, he traces the constitution of those meanings not to the animals who use the signs but to another origin.
The main purpose of this essay is to examine the Abelard’s zoosemiotic theory and to critique it from a Husserlian phenomenological perspective. I choose to examine Abelard’s theory from a Husserlian perspective because Edmund Husserl’s theory of intentionality is one of the most significant to emerge from 20th century philosophy. In pursuing this task, I will do three things. First, I will examine Abelard's zoosemiotic theory. Secondly, I will critique this theory from a Husserlian standpoint. Finally, I will propose a Husserlian solution to some of the problems and issues raised during the course of these discussions.
I hope to demonstrate through this analysis that, from a Husserlian perspective, when non-human animals engage in meaningful communicative behavior, they do partake of the higher, meaning-constituting sphere of intentionality. In other words, animals that communicate are not only capable of intuitive intentional acts but are also capable of objectifying signitive acts.
The main purpose of this essay is to examine the Abelard’s zoosemiotic theory and to critique it from a Husserlian phenomenological perspective. I choose to examine Abelard’s theory from a Husserlian perspective because Edmund Husserl’s theory of intentionality is one of the most significant to emerge from 20th century philosophy. In pursuing this task, I will do three things. First, I will examine Abelard's zoosemiotic theory. Secondly, I will critique this theory from a Husserlian standpoint. Finally, I will propose a Husserlian solution to some of the problems and issues raised during the course of these discussions.
I hope to demonstrate through this analysis that, from a Husserlian perspective, when non-human animals engage in meaningful communicative behavior, they do partake of the higher, meaning-constituting sphere of intentionality. In other words, animals that communicate are not only capable of intuitive intentional acts but are also capable of objectifying signitive acts.
Research Interests: Semiotics, Medieval Philosophy, Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Biosemiotics, and 20 moreIntentionality, Cognitive Ethology, Zoosemiotics, Medieval semiotics, Medieval Theories of Signification, Animal communication, Husserlian phenomenology, Zoosemiotics (Biology), Animal Consciousness, Animal minds, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, contemporary continental philosophy, axiology (theories and applied research on values), philosophical and cultural anthropology, diversity managment, gender studies, intercultural communication, and translations studies, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Peter Abelard, Animal Minds, Beliefs, Intentionality, Foundations for Biosemiotics, Cognition and communication in human and nonhuman animals, Theories of signification, Constitutive Intentionality, Constitutive Phenomenology, and Philosophy of Cognitive Etholody
Robert Boyle has generally been regarded by most historians and philosophers of science as one of the champions of the mechanical philosophy in the 17th century and as a key scientific figure in the advancement of the Cartesian mechanical... more
Robert Boyle has generally been regarded by most historians and philosophers of science as one of the champions of the mechanical philosophy in the 17th century and as a key scientific figure in the advancement of the Cartesian mechanical philosophy. In the Sceptical Chymist (1661) and The Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular Philosophy (1674), Boyle extols the virtues of the mechanical philosophy, which was “the major source of his new emphasis in chemistry upon structure, configuration and motion, as well as a cause of his rejection of explanations in terms of inherent characteristics of the ultimate corpuscles.” In fact, the very title of his 1674 work conflates the notion of corpuscularianism with the notion of mechanism, as though these notions implied each other. Furthermore, although it is well known that Boyle was a practicing alchemist, he did not resort to the Paracelsian concept of the tria prima in order to explain transmutation but, rather, he attempted to understand transmutation in a way compatible with the mechanical philosophy. I hope to demonstrate, however, that despite the evidence of the above-mentioned writings, Boyle’s corpuscularian ontology cannot be easily categorized as purely mechanistic, and there are suggestions that Boyle may have embraced an emergentist notion of chemical properties. In order to accommodate what may be considered an emergentist conception of chemical properties within the context of a generally mechanical conception of matter, Boyle drew a distinction between corpuscles of the first order, whose properties he described in mechanistic terms, and corpuscles of the second order, whose properties he characterized in chemical terms. A close examination of Boyle’s chemical writings, both published and unpublished, suggests that Boyle regarded the chemical properties of second-order corpuscles as emergent properties and that he did so precisely in order better to conceptualize his own chemical work and the results of his experiments. What is, therefore, interesting about Boyle’s chemical philosophy, specifically as it relates to his chemical experiments, is that he does not seem to have embraced a simple dichotomy of reduction/emergence but, rather, was able to adapt his mechanical philosophy to his chemical practice by working out a hybrid ontology that reconciled a strict mechanistic conception of fundamental corpuscles with an non-mechanical notion of chemical properties.
The paper will begin with a discussion of Boyle’s complex particulate theory according to which first-order corpuscles are described in terms of the mechanistic properties of shape, size, and motion, while second-order corpuscles are described as compound corpuscles endowed with chemical properties. Boyle’s writings on these topics suggest that he regarded the chemical properties as emergent properties of second-order corpuscles and denied that these properties originated directly from the mechanical properties of first-order corpuscles. Following this, I will discuss the manner in which Boyle sought to interpret his chemical experiments within the framework of this complex ontology. In particular, I will focus on one of Boyle’s most famous experiments, the redintegration of potassium nitrate (aerial niter or saltpeter). Boyle’s interpretation of the reconstitution of niter suggests that, for him, the nature of niter is heterogeneous and displays properties that are very different from those of the parts of which it is composed, although these properties arise from the mixture of these component parts.
Boyle’s interpretation of this experiment was not uncontroversial, however, and his attempt at explaining the results of the redintegration of niter in non-mechanistic terms was not without its critics. I will discuss the debate between Boyle and one of these critics, Spinoza, who attempted to reproduce Boyle’s experiments with niter but sought to provide a strictly Cartesian mechanistic interpretation of the results obtained. For Spinoza, Descartes’ a priori rationalistic method had succeeded in uncovering the real nature of matter, and Spinoza did not believe that Boyle’s experiments with niter had either amplified or improved on Descartes’ work.
Finally, following the discussion of the Boyle-Spinoza debate over the redintegration of niter, I will discuss how this debate illustrates a profound difference between the attitude of the experimental chemist and that of the Rationalist theoretician with regard to the role of experimental investigation in conceptualizing an adequate theory of matter. As Meinel explains, in the 17th century, “alleged experimental confirmations of mechanical hypotheses were far from being as conclusive as the theoreticians and experimentalists of the mechanical philosophy pretended.” Spinoza the theoretician, however, was intent on upholding the primacy of an a priori mechanistic ontology by forcing such a strict interpretation on experimental results that, in fact, suggested a different understanding of matter. On the other hand, a practicing chemist like Boyle was willing to be flexible and pragmatic in his reconciliation of mechanistic philosophy with the results of his experimental investigations. Boyle could thus account for the results of his experiments with niter by positing second-order compound corpuscles that displayed emergent chemical properties and could, thereby transcend the simplistic dichotomy of reduction/emergence, without having to negate his Cartesian mechanistic position on the nature of fundamental, first-order corpuscles.
The paper will begin with a discussion of Boyle’s complex particulate theory according to which first-order corpuscles are described in terms of the mechanistic properties of shape, size, and motion, while second-order corpuscles are described as compound corpuscles endowed with chemical properties. Boyle’s writings on these topics suggest that he regarded the chemical properties as emergent properties of second-order corpuscles and denied that these properties originated directly from the mechanical properties of first-order corpuscles. Following this, I will discuss the manner in which Boyle sought to interpret his chemical experiments within the framework of this complex ontology. In particular, I will focus on one of Boyle’s most famous experiments, the redintegration of potassium nitrate (aerial niter or saltpeter). Boyle’s interpretation of the reconstitution of niter suggests that, for him, the nature of niter is heterogeneous and displays properties that are very different from those of the parts of which it is composed, although these properties arise from the mixture of these component parts.
Boyle’s interpretation of this experiment was not uncontroversial, however, and his attempt at explaining the results of the redintegration of niter in non-mechanistic terms was not without its critics. I will discuss the debate between Boyle and one of these critics, Spinoza, who attempted to reproduce Boyle’s experiments with niter but sought to provide a strictly Cartesian mechanistic interpretation of the results obtained. For Spinoza, Descartes’ a priori rationalistic method had succeeded in uncovering the real nature of matter, and Spinoza did not believe that Boyle’s experiments with niter had either amplified or improved on Descartes’ work.
Finally, following the discussion of the Boyle-Spinoza debate over the redintegration of niter, I will discuss how this debate illustrates a profound difference between the attitude of the experimental chemist and that of the Rationalist theoretician with regard to the role of experimental investigation in conceptualizing an adequate theory of matter. As Meinel explains, in the 17th century, “alleged experimental confirmations of mechanical hypotheses were far from being as conclusive as the theoreticians and experimentalists of the mechanical philosophy pretended.” Spinoza the theoretician, however, was intent on upholding the primacy of an a priori mechanistic ontology by forcing such a strict interpretation on experimental results that, in fact, suggested a different understanding of matter. On the other hand, a practicing chemist like Boyle was willing to be flexible and pragmatic in his reconciliation of mechanistic philosophy with the results of his experimental investigations. Boyle could thus account for the results of his experiments with niter by positing second-order compound corpuscles that displayed emergent chemical properties and could, thereby transcend the simplistic dichotomy of reduction/emergence, without having to negate his Cartesian mechanistic position on the nature of fundamental, first-order corpuscles.
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, History of Science, and 17 more17th-Century Studies, Cartesianism, Philosophy of Chemistry, History and philosophy of science (History), Robert Boyle, Ontology, History and Philosophy of Science, Science and Technology Studies, Chymistry, Cartesian Mechanicism, History of Chemistry, Early Modern life sciences, chymistry and natural philosphy, Mechanicism, Mechanical Philosophy, Philosophy and history of science, Cartésianismes Et Leurs Réceptions, History and Philosophy of Science, Chymistry and Natural Philosophy, and Mechanistic Philosophy
The 16th and 17th centuries mark a period of transition between the vitalistic ontology that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy and the Early Modern mechanistic paradigm endorsed by, among others, the Cartesians and Newtonians.... more
The 16th and 17th centuries mark a period of transition between the vitalistic ontology that had dominated Renaissance natural philosophy and the Early Modern mechanistic paradigm endorsed by, among others, the Cartesians and Newtonians. This paper will focus on how the tensions between vitalism and mechanism played themselves out in the context of 16th and 17th century chemistry and chemical philosophy, particularly in the works of Paracelsus, Jan Baptist Van Helmont, Robert Fludd, and Robert Boyle. Rather than argue that these natural philosophers each embraced either fully vitalistic or fully mechanistic ontologies, I hope to demonstrate that these thinkers adhered to complicated and nuanced ontologies that cannot be described in either purely vitalistic or purely mechanistic terms. Brief attention will also be paid to the debate between the Leibnizians and the Newtonians over the theory of matter, how these debates influenced the resolution of the tension between vitalism and mechanism in chemical philosophy, and how the ultimate victory of mechanistic philosophy over vitalism culminated in the 18th century Chemical Revolution.
The paper will begin with a brief discussion of the role of vitalism in Renaissance philosophy and of its relationship to hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and the Scholastic notion of occult properties. Special focus will be placed on the natural philosophies of Tommaso Campanella and Giordano Bruno. This short discussion will be followed by a more detailed account of how vitalism influenced work in alchemy and early chemistry, particularly that of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and Fludd. I will show that despite the vitalistic, hermetic, and quasi-mystical conceptions of reality embraced by each of these natural philosophers, each of them also embraced an empirical method and approach to the study and manipulation of nature that marks them as precursors to modern scientific methodology.
Following this, I will briefly discuss the mechanistic philosophy endorsed by the Cartesians and Newtonians and will then focus on the work of Robert Boyle as it represents a movement towards a mechanistic ontology and, in particular, towards a mechanistic approach to the study of chemistry. Yet, despite the fact that Boyle authored The Sceptical Chymist as a response to spagyrists and “alchymists”, he was himself a practicing alchemist who believed in the possibility of the transmutation of metals. Although he conveniently separated conceptually the functions of alchemy and chemistry, in order to account for both practices, he had to embrace an ontology that was not easily demarcated as completely mechanistic.
17th century natural philosophy, and chemical philosophy was no exception, was also marked by the debate between the Leibnizians and the Newtonians over the theory of matter, a debate that is intimately linked to that between vitalism and mechanism. Leibniz, ultimately, opposed the conception of matter as inert by virtue of the fact that, for him, all monads, including those that make up what we call ‘matter’ contain within them an inner force. This view clearly favors a vitalistic ontology. Newton, on the other hand, refuses to define force in vitalistic terms and, instead, defines it mathematically in terms of mass multiplied by acceleration. Despite differences of details in terms of how matter, force, and gravitation are described by the Cartesians and Newtonians, it is clear that the Newtonians embrace a mechanistic conception of nature and its laws. The resolution of this debate in favor of an unambiguous materialistic and mechanistic ontology ultimately impacts on the development of chemical philosophy as it culminates in the Chemical Revolution of the 18th century.
The paper will begin with a brief discussion of the role of vitalism in Renaissance philosophy and of its relationship to hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and the Scholastic notion of occult properties. Special focus will be placed on the natural philosophies of Tommaso Campanella and Giordano Bruno. This short discussion will be followed by a more detailed account of how vitalism influenced work in alchemy and early chemistry, particularly that of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and Fludd. I will show that despite the vitalistic, hermetic, and quasi-mystical conceptions of reality embraced by each of these natural philosophers, each of them also embraced an empirical method and approach to the study and manipulation of nature that marks them as precursors to modern scientific methodology.
Following this, I will briefly discuss the mechanistic philosophy endorsed by the Cartesians and Newtonians and will then focus on the work of Robert Boyle as it represents a movement towards a mechanistic ontology and, in particular, towards a mechanistic approach to the study of chemistry. Yet, despite the fact that Boyle authored The Sceptical Chymist as a response to spagyrists and “alchymists”, he was himself a practicing alchemist who believed in the possibility of the transmutation of metals. Although he conveniently separated conceptually the functions of alchemy and chemistry, in order to account for both practices, he had to embrace an ontology that was not easily demarcated as completely mechanistic.
17th century natural philosophy, and chemical philosophy was no exception, was also marked by the debate between the Leibnizians and the Newtonians over the theory of matter, a debate that is intimately linked to that between vitalism and mechanism. Leibniz, ultimately, opposed the conception of matter as inert by virtue of the fact that, for him, all monads, including those that make up what we call ‘matter’ contain within them an inner force. This view clearly favors a vitalistic ontology. Newton, on the other hand, refuses to define force in vitalistic terms and, instead, defines it mathematically in terms of mass multiplied by acceleration. Despite differences of details in terms of how matter, force, and gravitation are described by the Cartesians and Newtonians, it is clear that the Newtonians embrace a mechanistic conception of nature and its laws. The resolution of this debate in favor of an unambiguous materialistic and mechanistic ontology ultimately impacts on the development of chemical philosophy as it culminates in the Chemical Revolution of the 18th century.
Research Interests: Alchemy, Paracelsus (Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus von Hohenheim), Jan Baptist van Helmont, Cartesianism, Vitalism-Mechanism Debate, and 8 moreVitalism, History and Philosophy of Science; Metaphysics; History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History and Philosophy of Special Sciences, Scientific Practice., Mechanicism, Philosophy and history of science, Paracelsianism, History of Vitalism, Vitalismo, and Paracelsian Medicine
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Research Interests: Black Studies Or African American Studies, Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy, Existential Psychology, Critical Race Theory, Francophone Literature, and 10 moreJean Paul Sartre, Existential Psychotherapy, Frantz Fanon, French and Francophone Studies, African and Caribbean Literature, New World Studies, Gender and Women Studies, Existentialism, Existential phenomenology, Negritude, Critical Race Theory and Literature, La Litterature Francophone De La Negritude, and French Marxism
Research Interests:
In this presentation, I propose to examine the possible ethical and environmental implications of engineering and handling nanomaterials, both for the chemical engineers involved in the production of these materials and for the... more
In this presentation, I propose to examine the possible ethical and environmental implications of engineering and handling nanomaterials, both for the chemical engineers involved in the production of these materials and for the environment in which these materials are often dispersed. I will discuss the various uses of nanotechnology in industry and commerce, as well as the health and environmental effects of exposure to nanoparticles. Since I am a philosopher, I will also reinforce the ethical imperative to be cautious with regard to the manufacture and use of nanotechnologies, as well as the principle that should be adopted when creating laws and policies to regulate the production and use of nanomaterials.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Constitutional Law, French Revolution, 18th Century Philosophy, American Revolution, Baruch Spinoza, and 13 moreSocial and Political Philosophy, 17th- and 18th-century Philosophy, Eighteenth Century Radical Enlightenment, Spinozism, Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Jonathan I. Israel, Jonathan Israel Democratic Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel Revolution Mind, Moderate Enlightenment, Spinozisme, Spinozismusstreit, and Spinozismo
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Research Interests:
Research Interests: Renaissance Platonism, Giordano Bruno, Natural Magic, Scientific Revolution, Marsilio Ficino, and 8 moreHermeticism, Giordano Bruno and philosophers of nature, The western mystery tradition in literature; alchemy and theater; the Renaissance and occultism, Renaissance Neo-Platonism, General research and teaching: history of European magic and alchemy; Hermeticism and Gnosticism; contemporary occultism, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, History of Hermeticism, and Renaissance Hermeticism
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Course Objectives: This course is an intermediate-level study of symbolic logic in which students will learn the methods of direct proof, conditional proof, and indirect proof as they are used in proposition logic and predicate logic. The... more
Course Objectives: This course is an intermediate-level study of symbolic logic in which students will learn the methods of direct proof, conditional proof, and indirect proof as they are used in proposition logic and predicate logic. The course will begin with a quick review of the symbolization techniques of propositional logic and of truth-functional operators. This will be followed by a discussion of the methods of direct proof, conditional proof, and indirect proof in propositional logic. This will be followed by discussion of the symbolization techniques of predicate (first-order) logic, which combines the formal content of syllogistic logic and with the content of truth-functional propositional logic. Lastly, Students will learn to apply the methods of direct proof, conditional proof, and indirect proof to arguments in predicate logic. In this context, we will also be covering the quantifier negation rule, the counterexample and the finite universe methods for proving invalidity, relational predicates and overlapping quantifiers, and identity statements, superlatives, numerical statements, and definite descriptions. The course, however, will not cover second-order logic or mathematical logic (set theory, model theory, proof theory, or recursion theory).
Research Interests: Logic, Quantification, Algorithms, Formal Logic, Formal Logic, Classical Logic, and 13 moreSymbolic Logic, First-Order Logic, First Order Predicate Calculus / Foundations of Mathematics, Logic, symbolic computation, Formal and Logical Computing, Lógica Proposicional Lógica Formal Lógica Informal Falacias Teoría De La Argumentación Retórica Dialéctica, Quantification Method, Predicate Logic, Logical Implication – Propositional Calculus – Scientific Reasoning., Logics and Proofs, The First-Order Predicate Logic, Propositional Logic, and logical proofs
Research Interests: Medieval Philosophy, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Humanism, Renaissance Philosophy, and 15 moreMedieval Jewish Philosophy, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Medieval Mysticism, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Islamic intellectual history, medieval political thought,Islamic philosophy and mysticism, Italian Renaissance Studies, Medieval Thought, Medieval Christian Philosophy, Italian Renaissance Philosophy, History of Renaissance Philosophical Thought (Giogio Gemisto Pletone, Jewish Medieval Thought, Medieval Christian Thought, Renaissance Hermeticism, Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy, and Medieval Hermeticism and Renaissance magic
Research Interests: 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, Hume, Giambattista Vico, René Descartes, Cartesianism, and 18 moreBenedict de Spinoza, Locke, George Berkeley, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Locke, David Hume, Leibniz (Philosophy), Spinoza, Early Modern Political Thought, Berkeley, Vico, Giambattista, Descartes, Early Modern Philosophy, Leibniz, Vico) History of Scientific and Philosophical Ideas Philosophy and Psychology of Action, Giambatttista Vico, and Baruch de Spinoza
Research Interests: Hegel, Kant's Practical Philosophy, Schopenhauer, Georg Friedrich Wilhem Hegel, Emmanuel Kant, and 17 moreImmanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Kant & neo-Kantianism, Hegel (Philosophy) (Philosophy), Kantian ethics, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, German philosophy, Post-Kantian Philosophy, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, German Romanticism and Idealism (mainly Hegel), Critique of Pure Reason, Kant and Critique of Pure Reason, Hegelianism, Schopenhauer's Philosophy, The Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Research Interests: Political Philosophy, Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, Social and Political Philosophy, and 16 moreEnlightenment Political Thought, European Enlightenment, German Enlightenment, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, Eighteenth Century Radical Enlightenment, the Enlightenment, French Enlightenment, Enlightment, Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Jonathan I. Israel, Jonathan Israel Democratic Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel Revolution Mind, Socio Political Philosophy, Moderate Enlightenment, and Horkheimer Max Adorno Theodor W Dialectic of Enlightenment Philosophical Fragments
Research Interests: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Paul Sartre, and 21 moreHeidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, Heidegger and Technology, Early Edmund Husserl, Husserlian phenomenology, Heidegger's Being and Time, Sartre, Phenomenology- Mind/Body Problems/ Merleau-Ponty's Philosophical Thought/Phenomenology and Embodiment, Husserl: Life-world (Lebenswelt), Phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau Ponty), M. Merleau-Ponty, Sartre's existentialism, History of Philosophy, Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and especially Heidegger, Philosophy of Religion, Philospohy of Art, Philosophy of Nature., Merleau Ponty, conciousness in J P Sartre, Perception Embodiment Concepts McDowell Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology Openness Mind World, Phenomenological Philosophy: Husserl, Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and Phenomenology (Heidegger
Research Interests: Philosophy of Mind, Analytic Philosophy, Embodied Mind and Cognition, Consciousness, Metaphysics of Mind, and 17 moreExtended Mind, Continental Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness Studies, Philosophy of the Mind, Philosophy of mind, consciousness, Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy of Perception; Phenomenology, Philosophy of Language, Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of MInd, Philosophy of Mind (the hard problem of consciousness), Philosophy of Embodied Consciousness, Philosophy of Language and Mind, Philosophy of Consciousness, Philosophy of Mind and Metaphyics, Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness, the self and causation, Philosophy of Perception, Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness, Intentionality, Philosophy of Mind and Artificial Intelligence & AI, Quantum Physics. Philosophy of Mind, and Naturalism Consciousness Experimental Philosophy Philosophy of Mind
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Research Interests: Renaissance Philosophy, Scientific Revolution, The Scientific Revolution, Historiography of scientific revolution, Frances A. Yates, and 5 moreHistory of the Scientific Revolution, Francis Yates, Renaissance Hermeticism, Medieval Hermeticism and Renaissance magic, and Renaissance Hermeticism and Magic
Research Interests: Marxism, Marxist Economics, Plato, Hegel, Giambattista Vico, and 33 morePhilosophy of Karl Marx, René Descartes, Marxist theory, Simone de Beauvoir, Rousseau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Paul Sartre, G.W.F. Hegel, Fanon, Plato and Platonism, Descartes, René, Platonism, Vico, Giambattista, Marxist political economy, Marx, Karl, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, Jean Jaques Rousseau, Frantz Fanon, Karl Marx, Niccolò Machiavelli, Vico, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Hegel (Philosophy) (Philosophy), Simone de Beauvoir (Philosophy), Sartre, Niccolo Machiavelli, Sartre's existentialism, Hegelianism, Fanonism, Franz Fanon, POST COLONIAL THEORY BY FRATZ FANON, and J. J. Rousseau
This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresholds of life. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been discussed and developed in other books, some highly specialized and others of a... more
This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresholds of life. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been discussed and developed in other books, some highly specialized and others of a more general nature.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This presentation will examine the manner in which Robert Boyle was able to reconcile the notion that all matter fundamentally consists of indivisible corpuscles (prima naturalia) that have the universal and strictly mechanical primary... more
This presentation will examine the manner in which Robert Boyle was able to reconcile the notion that all matter fundamentally consists of indivisible corpuscles (prima naturalia) that have the universal and strictly mechanical primary properties of shape, size, and motion, while at the same time holding that different species of matter (gold, lead, silver, etc.) have unique and essential properties that distinguish them from other species of matter and that remain unaltered by superficial physical changes. To reconcile these two positions, Boyle claimed that each species of matter consists of complex corpuscles that are aggregations of prima naturalia, and that the essential structure of the aggregation accounts for the essential properties that are unique to that species. Besides essential properties, however, species of matter also display properties (such as color, for example) that are not unique to those species and that are, therefore, considered extraessential properties tha...
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The name Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls forth, in most people's minds, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, and other such great poems. Coleridge was, however, also a philosopher, although he is not often... more
The name Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls forth, in most people's minds, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, and other such great poems. Coleridge was, however, also a philosopher, although he is not often recognized as such outside of scholarly circles. Besides poetry, Coleridge also authored a series of scholarly works such as Biographia Epistolaris, Biographia Literaria, Logic, On the Constitution of the Church and State, Theological and Political Notes, Philosophical Lectures, and Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory of Life, amongst others. In his philosophical works, he made a serious attempt to develop a systematic Christian "Logosophia" of nature, religion, philosophy, and science. Coleridge, in his philosophy of nature, attempted to reconcile two very different systems of thought by which he was greatly influenced. These were Christian theology and the dynamic Naturphilosophie of such philosophers as Schelling, Fichte, and Steffens. He w...
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ABSTRACT From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes in chemical ontology from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century is the shift from a vitalistic conception of fundamental corpuscles, to a... more
ABSTRACT From a philosophical point of view, one of the more significant changes in chemical ontology from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century is the shift from a vitalistic conception of fundamental corpuscles, to a mechanistic atomism, to an operational notion of chemical elements. This essay proposes to discuss some of the key figures in this ontological shift, focusing on the ideas of van Helmont, Sennert, Gassendi, Boyle, and Lavoisier. The essay examines the relationship between the work of late sixteenth century chymists and that of the mechanistic atomists to illustrate the fact that the atomistic framework of the late seventeenth century was intimately dependent upon the earlier work of vitalistic corpuscularian alchemists and chymists. In addition to tracing the influences of vitalistic corpuscularianism on the shift to a mechanistic atomistic ontology, this essay also establishes historical antecedents, in the work of Sennert and Boyle, for Lavoisier’s operational and analytical definition of chemical elements.
Research Interests: Geography, Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, History of Atomism, and 15 moreJan Baptist van Helmont, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Philosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, Chemical Philosophy, Chymistry, Paracelsus, Daniel Sennert, Lavoisier, Chemical Ontology, Corpuscularianism, Mechanical Philosophy, Paracelsianism, History of Vitalism, and Mechanistic Philosophy
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... ANTON-HERMANN C. CHROUST** ... 1 Cf. Julius Stone, Fallacies of the logical form in English law: A study of stare decisis in legal flux, in INTERPRETATIONS OF MODERN LEGAL PsLosopmEs, EssAYs IN HONOR OF RoscoE POrND 696-735 (Paul... more
... ANTON-HERMANN C. CHROUST** ... 1 Cf. Julius Stone, Fallacies of the logical form in English law: A study of stare decisis in legal flux, in INTERPRETATIONS OF MODERN LEGAL PsLosopmEs, EssAYs IN HONOR OF RoscoE POrND 696-735 (Paul Sayre ed. 1947). Page 2. ...
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ABSTRACT Although Boyle has been regarded as a champion of the seventeenth century Cartesian mechanical philosophy, I defend the position that Boyle’s views conciliate between a strictly mechanistic conception of fundamental matter and a... more
ABSTRACT Although Boyle has been regarded as a champion of the seventeenth century Cartesian mechanical philosophy, I defend the position that Boyle’s views conciliate between a strictly mechanistic conception of fundamental matter and a non-reductionist conception of chemical qualities. In particular, I argue that this conciliation is evident in Boyle’s ontological distinction between fundamental corpuscles endowed with mechanistic properties and higher-level corpuscular concretions endowed with chemical properties. Some of these points have already been acknowledged by contemporary scholars, and I actively engage with their ideas in this paper. However I attempt to contribute to the debate over Boyle’s mechanical philosophy by arguing that Boyle’s writings suggest an emergentist, albeit still mechanistic, notion of chemical properties. I contrast Boyle’s views against those of strict reductionist mechanical philosophers, focusing on the famous debate with Spinoza over the redintegration of niter, and argue that Boyle’s complex chemical ontology provides a more satisfactory understanding of chemical phenomena than is provided by a strictly reductionist and Cartesian mechanical philosophy.
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Research Interests: Semiotics, Medieval Philosophy, Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Biosemiotics, and 15 moreIntentionality, Cognitive Ethology, Medieval semiotics, Medieval Theories of Signification, Animal communication, Husserlian phenomenology, Animal Consciousness, Animal minds, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Peter Abelard, Foundations for Biosemiotics, Cognition and communication in human and nonhuman animals, Constitutive Intentionality, Constitutive Phenomenology, and Philosophy of Cognitive Etholody
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Research Interests: Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Chemistry, History of Science, Cartesianism, Early Modern Science and Philosophy, and 12 morePhilosophy of Chemistry, Early Modern Science, Emergence, Reductionism, Chemical Philosophy, Robert Boyle, Chymistry, Cartesian Mechanicism, Chemical Ontology, Non-Reductionism, Corpuscularianism, and Chymistry and Natural Philosophy
The Neoplatonic vitalism that informed Renaissance culture dominated much of 14th and 15th century natural philosophy and its ontology. Lingering elements of this ontology, particularly the notions of spirit and ferment conceived in... more
The Neoplatonic vitalism that informed Renaissance culture dominated much of 14th and 15th century natural philosophy and its ontology. Lingering elements of this ontology, particularly the notions of spirit and ferment conceived in vitalistic terms, continued to resonate in the 16th and 17th centuries. This paper proposes to discuss the manner in which the work of the chemist Jan Baptista van Helmont (1580-1644) helped to transform the notions of spirit and ferment by giving these notions an unambiguously chemical interpretation, thereby influencing the eventual naturalization of these ideas in the work of late 17th century chemists. Helmont’s chemical interpretation of spirit and ferment is central to his hybrid ontology, which combines atomism with vitalism by embracing both the notions of corpuscular minima naturalia and non-corporeal semina rerum, understood as the formative principles from which all bodies originate. For Helmont, although minima are physical units with mechanical properties, they nevertheless also have ‘qualitative’ determinations that are accounted for via the semina. Seminal principles work in tandem with ferments to bring about substantial changes in nature by providing the spiritual force of action that causes chemical alterations. With this nuanced ontology, Helmont purports to explain the origin of all substances and all phenomena in nature. His ideas significantly contributed to the development of modern corpuscularian theory and to the chemical theory of fermentation and were extremely influential for the work of other important chemists, such as George Starkey and Robert Boyle. In particular, Helmont stresses the unambiguously chemical, albeit still vitalistic, interpretation of spirit and ferment. Once the important role of these ideas within early modern chemical philosophy was established, as it was by Helmont, it would not be long these notions to be fully naturalized by later chemist who interpreted them in strictly physicalistic terms.