Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
The original 2005 paper, as well as the subsequent works (Lombardi and
Labarca
2006
,
2011
; Labarca and Lombardi
2008
,
2010a
,
b
), had a fast and relevant
impact, and received both support and criticism. More than eight years after that
original work, it is time to take into account those criticisms and to try to answer
them. This is the main purpose of the present work.
3.2 The Concept of Ontological Reduction
as an Obscure Notion
The first criticism came immediately from Paul Needham (
2006
), who rejected the
very notion of ontological reduction that underlies those positions to which onto-
logical pluralism is explicitly confronted. He called into question the coherence of
the idea of ontological dependence: “
Is this idea of second class existence
,
in what
the authors go on to describe as
,
coherent
?” (Needham
2006
, p. 75). For the author, the notion of ontological
reduction is not sufficiently clear to be seriously considered: “
What is needed to
make the thesis clear is an acceptable notion of ontological dependence
,
in terms of
which the ontology of the reduced theory can be said to be dependent on that of the
reducing theory
,
but not vice versa
” (Needham
2006
, p. 78; see also Needham
2010
). But, according to Needham, the onus of proof falls on the shoulders of the
ontological reductionist, who must give a coherent account of his position; until he
does not do it, we do not need to spend our time in ontological matters. With respect
to this issue, Hinne Hettema seems to agree with Needham when he claims that “
the
notion of
an ontologically inferior level of reality
'
'
standing on its own is nonsensical
” (Hettema
2012
, p. 382) and proposes that “
philosophers of chemistry better rid themselves of
the concept of
'
ontological reduction
'
ontological reduction
.” (Hettema
2012
, p. 409).
I strongly disagree with these standpoints, where the notion of ontological
reduction is deprived of philosophical sense. On the contrary, both ontological
reduction and ontological dependence have been recurrent themes in the history of
philosophy.
1
Already in the Pre-Socratic philosophy, the idea of a fundamental stuff
(water, apeiron, air) of which everything is made was the trademark of the Milesian
school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes) in its quest for the reduction of mul-
tiplicity to unity. And although this initial monism was later abandoned in favor of
an ontological picture based on a handful of material principles, the attempt to
reduce the diversified empirical reality to a simpler underlying realm survived in
Empedocles and his four elements (fire, air, water and earth) and in the atomism of
Leucippus and Democritus (with their atoms and the void).
In Plato
'
'
s philosophy the principles became non material. Nevertheless, certain
ontological items, the Ideas, retained ontological priority over the others in the
sense that they did not need anything else to exist; the remaining items had a
'
1
The response to this criticism was barely suggested in the article devoted to answer Needham
s
'
objections (Lombardi and Labarca
2006
).
