Stuff versus individuals

Foundations of Chemistry 15 (1):65-77 (2012)
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Abstract

The general question to be considered in this paper points to the nature of the world described by chemistry: what is macro-chemical ontology like? In particular, we want to identify the ontological categories that underlie chemical discourse and chemical practice. This is not an easy task, because modern Western metaphysics was strongly modeled by theoretical physics. For this reason, we attempt to answer our question by contrasting macro-chemical ontology with the mainstream ontology of physics and of traditional metaphysics. In particular, we introduce the distinction between stuff-ontology, proper of chemistry, and individual-ontology, proper of physics. These two ontologies differ from each other in the basic categories of their own structures. On this basis, we characterize individual-ontology in such a way that the features of stuff-ontology will arise by contrast with it

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Author Profiles

Lucia Lewowicz
Universidad de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay

Citations of this work

The Right Stuff.Ned Markosian - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (4):665-687.
Smelling Molecular Structure.Benjamin D. Young - 2019 - In Dena Shottenkirk, Manuel Curado & Steven S. Gouveia (eds.), Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics. New York: Routledge. pp. 64-84.
Sniff, smell, and stuff.Vivian Mizrahi - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 171 (2):233-250.
On the very idea of biological individuality.Samir Okasha - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

View all 17 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
A Materialist Theory of the Mind.D. M. Armstrong - 1968 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Ted Honderich.
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics.Peter Frederick Strawson - 1959 - London, England: Routledge. Edited by Wenfang Wang.
Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):278-279.
Truth and meaning.Donald Davidson - 1967 - Synthese 17 (1):304-323.

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