Abstract
This paper establishes that Robert Boyle’s complex chemical ontology implies a non-reductionistic conception of chemical qualities and, more specifically, a conception of chemical qualities as being dispositional and relational. Though Peter Anstey has already shown that that Boyle considered sensible qualities to be dispositional and relational, this moves beyond Anstey’s work by extending his arguments to chemical properties. These arguments are, however, merely a first step in establishing a non-reductionistic interpretation of Boyle’s chemical ontology. A further argument will show that Boyle regards chemical and other higher-level properties as being emergent and supervenient properties. These arguments are supported by substantial textual evidence from Boyle’s writings, which show that he clearly conceived of chemical substances as functional wholes whose properties emerge not only from the microstructural ordering of their parts but also from their relationship with other chemical substances within the context of experimental practice.
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Notes
I will adopt Newman’s term ‘chymical atoms’ throughout this paper, both for the sake of clarity and to remain consistent with current scholarly practice. Newman coined this term to indicate those corpuscular concretions or moleculae from which chemical properties emerge. Newman chose to use the term ‘atomic’ because, according to Boyle, such corpuscular concretions were stable groupings of particles that resisted analysis by even the most corrosive analytical reagents of his day. Thus, although such corpuscular concretions were not ontologically fundamental or atomic, in the Epicurean sense of the term, they could be considered operationally atomic and perhaps even ‘elemental’.
References
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Banchetti-Robino, M.P. Robert Boyle and the relational and dispositional nature of chemical properties. Found Chem 24, 423–431 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-022-09435-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-022-09435-w