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Patching Physics and Chemistry Together

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert C. Bishop
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Abstract

The “usual story” regarding molecular chemistry is that it is roughly an application of quantum mechanics. That is to say, quantum mechanics supplies everything necessary and sufficient, both ontologically and epistemologically, to reduce molecular chemistry to quantum mechanics. This is a reductive story, to be sure, but a key explanatory element of molecular chemistry, namely molecular structure, is absent from the quantum realm. On the other hand, typical characterizations of emergence, such as the unpredictability or inexplicability of molecular structure based on quantum mechanics, do not characterize the relationship between molecular chemistry and quantum mechanics well either. A different scheme for characterizing reduction and emergence is proposed that accommodates the relationship between quantum mechanics and molecular chemistry and some initial objections to the scheme are considered.

Type
Topics in Philosophy of Physics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 72 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2005 , pp. 710 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Early versions of this paper were presented at the British Society for the Philosophy of Science Annual Meeting and the Popper Seminar in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. Engaging discussions with Harald Atmanspacher, Fred Kronz, Carl Gillett, Hans Primas, and Michael Silberstein are gratefully acknowledged. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as well as the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Program for the Investment in the Future of the German Government provided much appreciated financial support.

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