Review of "Stuff. The Nature of Chemical Substances"

MARTÍN LABARCA; OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

FOUNDATIONS OF CHEMISTRY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Dordrecht; Año: 2009 vol. 11 p. 183 - 186

1386-4238

Since the corpuscular philosophy of early Modernity to the contemporary standard model, the world of physics has been a world of individual particles interacting with each other. And, from the widely spread reductionist perspective, that is the real world. This prejudice led to ignore that the world of chemistry is fundamentally populated by substances reacting with each other. But, by contrast with particles, a substance cannot be subsumed under the ontological category of individual: it is a stuff. Whereas traditional philosophical analysis has directed a great attention to the concept of individual, up to now the category of stuff has remained scarcely explored. This book is a valuable attempt to revert this situation.