INVESTIGADORES
LOMBARDI olimpia Iris
artículos
Título:
The ontological autonomy of the chemical world: a response to Needham
Autor/es:
OLIMPIA LOMBARDI; MARTÍN LABARCA
Revista:
FOUNDATIONS OF CHEMISTRY
Editorial:
SPRINGER
Referencias:
Lugar: Dordrecht; Año: 2006 vol. 8 p. 81 - 92
ISSN:
1386-4238
Resumen:
In his comment to our article (Foundations of Chemistry, 7 (2005), 125–48), Paul Needham considers our proposal of an ontological pluralism as a radical alternative, not needed to deal with the problem of the relationship between chemistry and physics. Needham agrees with us that ontological reduction cannot be simply assumed; however, he decides to shift the burden of the proof to the ontological reductionist, and to wait for a coherent account of the thesis and for a convincing argument for it before going ‘‘so far’’ as us. Of course, there is no ultimate and definitive position in science or in philosophy: we have learned from history that even the best arguments are good only in a relative sense. Moreover, science does not force an only ‘‘right’’ metaphysical view: metaphysics is underdetermined by scientific theories. Therefore, when ontological questions are discussed, there may always exist different philosophical positions, different ontological pictures to account for the world described by science. And the adoption of one of the pictures over the others strongly depends on the philosophical temperament of each author. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there are not good reasons to defend a certain philosophical position. And a strong argument in favor of an ontological picture is its fruitfulness in the account of many different problems of the philosophy of science. It is precisely in this sense that, we think, ontological pluralism can be argued for: it supplies us a philosophical framework to deal with many puzzles arising when the relationships between the worlds described by different theories are considered.