Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
one specialized field, which for the whole of chemistry would then be equally ranked
with all the other aims. However, although the different aims are logically indepen-
dent from each other, the pursuit of one can be useful for that of others (Schummer
2014a
, chap. 11). For instance, working on causal explanations can make predictions
more reliable than those that are based on mere statistical correlations. In turn,
improving predictive capacities, including merely statistical error estimates, consid-
erably helps the design and control of experiments conducted for the purpose of
explanation or synthesis. Also synthesis and classification can mutually benefit each
other, when synthesis reveals new, unexpected substance classes or when classifica-
tion allows one to derive synthetic goals. Similarly, technological aims frequently
inspire explanatory, predictive, synthetic, or classificatory work, and vice versa.
Although methodological pluralism is inevitable in chemistry, that does not mean
that all approaches follow paths independent from one another. Instead, they can
mutual benefit each other by complementary assistance, which is, like the modern
division of labor in economics, much more beneficial for the entire endeavor of
science than the pursuit of obscure aims such as TRUTH.
The second reason why methodological pluralism is inevitable in chemistry
refers to its epistemic limits. Historically the limits of scientific knowledge were
the central topic of epistemology, from medieval debates on the relationship
between science and theology to Kant
, before it became
outmoded by ambitious philosophies and popularizations of physics. However, an
approach that does not know its limits and instead promises universal applicability
without scientific arguments, belongs to speculative philosophy or simplistic pop-
ularization rather than to science. While it is the job of each science to define the
limits of applicability of its individual theories or models (see below), it is up to
epistemology to identify fundamental limits of knowledge that cannot be overcome.
There are several such limits of chemical knowledge (Schummer
2010
), of which
one is particularly important here: the unbridgeable gap between the concepts and
objects of chemistry. The general issue has a long tradition in philosophy, most
prominently in the metaphysical realism/nominalism debate (Sect.
5.7
). However, in
chemistry we have a privileged access of analysis that allows conclusions beyond
metaphysical speculations. For, chemistry has addressed the realism/nominalism
issue, which is sometimes misleadingly called the issue of natural kinds, by exper-
imental means, largely unnoticed by mainstream philosophy. Rather than only
adjusting our concepts to the world as it is, chemistry also adjusts the world to its
concepts by creating experimental systems that best fit its frameworks (Schummer
2010
). Most importantly, the objects of experimental investigations are the end
results of sophisticated purification procedures: pure substances or fabricated mix-
tures thereof. Because every concept of modern chemistry, both empirical and
theoretical, is based on the notion of pure substances, the strategy seems to be
ideal. It has its price, however, because there are, strictly speaking, no pure substances
in the material world, neither inside nor outside the laboratory.
In the natural world, a piece of matter is always a complex mixture whose
compounds, in terms of pure substances, can be listed only with limited precision.
For instance, one can identify a few thousand substances in a simple piece of soil,
s
Critique of Pure Reason
'
