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The need for the historical understanding of nature in physics and chemistry

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Abstract

During the last decades the physico-chemical conception of self-organization of chemical systems has been created. The chemical systems in natural-historical processes do not have any creator: they rise up from irreversible processes by self-organization. The issue of self-organization in physics has led to a new interpretation of the laws of nature. As Ilya Prigogine has shown, they do not express certainties but possibilities and describe a world that must be understood in a historical way. In the new philosophical understanding of nature priority is not ascribed to any single type or level of entity, but to historical processes, to processes of endless generation and change.

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Acknowledgements

This paper includes the short parts, which were read at the 7th and 8th Summer Symposiums of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry. I would like to thank the participants of these symposiums, especially Professor Joseph E. Earley, Sr. for useful questions, comments and suggestions.

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  1. Chair of Philosophy, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, Tallinn, 19086, Estonia

    Leo Näpinen

  2. Hange 5, Tallinn, 11616, Estonia

    Leo Näpinen

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Näpinen, L. The need for the historical understanding of nature in physics and chemistry. Found Chem 9, 65–84 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-006-9018-6

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