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Robin Findlay Hendry [25]Robin Hendry [8]Robin F. Hendry [3]R. F. Hendry [2]
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  1. Elements, Compounds, and Other Chemical Kinds.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):864-875.
    In this article I assess the problems and prospects of a microstructural approach to chemical substances. Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam famously claimed that to be gold is to have atomic number 79 and to be water is to be H2O. I relate the first claim to the concept of element in the history of chemistry, arguing that the reference of element names is determined by atomic number. Compounds are more difficult: water is so complex and heterogeneous at the molecular (...)
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  2. Two conceptions of the chemical bond.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):909-920.
    In this article I sketch G. N. Lewis’s views on chemical bonding and Linus Pauling’s attempt to preserve Lewis’s insights within a quantum‐mechanical theory of the bond. I then set out two broad conceptions of the chemical bond, the structural and the energetic views, which differ on the extent in which they preserve anything like the classical chemical bond in the modern quantum‐mechanical understanding of molecular structure. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Durham University, 50 Old (...)
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  3. Dispositional essentialism and the necessity of laws.Robin Findlay Hendry & Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2009 - Analysis 69 (4):668-677.
    We argue that the inference from dispositional essentialism about a property (in the broadest sense) to the metaphysical necessity of laws involving it is invalid. Let strict dispositional essentialism be any view according to which any given property’s dispositional character is precisely the same across all possible worlds. Clearly, any version of strict dispositional essentialism rules out worlds with different laws involving that property. Permissive dispositional essentialism is committed to a property’s identity being tied to its dispositional profile or causal (...)
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  4.  38
    Structure, scale and emergence.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 85:44-53.
  5. The elements and conceptual change.Robin Hendry - 2010 - In Helen Beebee & Nigel Sabbarton-Leary (eds.), The Semantics and Metaphysics of Natural Kinds. New York: Routledge.
  6.  92
    Lavoisier and mendeleev on the elements.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2004 - Foundations of Chemistry 7 (1):31-48.
    Lavoisier defined an element as a chemicalsubstance that cannot be decomposed usingcurrent analytical methods. Mendeleev saw anelement as a substance composed of atoms of thesame atomic weight. These `definitions' doquite different things: Lavoisier'sdistinguishes the elements from the compounds,so that the elements may form the basis of acompositional nomenclature; Mendeleev's offersa criterion of sameness and difference forelemental substances, while Lavoisier's doesnot. In this paper I explore the historical andtheoretical background to each proposal.Lavoisier's and Mendeleev's explicitconceptions of elementhood differed from eachother, and (...)
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  7.  57
    Models and approximations in quantum chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry - 1998 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 63:123-142.
  8.  90
    Chemical substances and the limits of pluralism.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2011 - Foundations of Chemistry 14 (1):55-68.
    In this paper I investigate the relationship between vernacular kind terms and specialist scientific vocabularies. Elsewhere I have developed a defence of realism about the chemical elements as natural kinds. This defence depends on identifying the epistemic interests and theoretical conception of the elements that have suffused chemistry since the mid-eighteenth century. Because of this dependence, it is a discipline-specific defence, and would seem to entail important concessions to pluralism about natural kinds. I argue that making this kind of concession (...)
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  9.  85
    Le Poidevin on the Reduction of Chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry & Paul Needham - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2):339-353.
    In this article we critically evaluate Robin Le Poidevin's recent attempt to set out an argument for the ontological reduction of chemistry independently of intertheoretic reduction. We argue, firstly, that the argument he envisages applies only to a small part of chemistry, and that there is no obvious way to extend it. We argue, secondly, that the argument cannot establish the reduction of chemistry, properly so called.
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  10. The physicists, the chemists, and the pragmatics of explanation.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1048-1059.
    In this paper I investigate two views of theoretical explanation in quantum chemistry, advocated by John Clarke Slater and Charles Coulson. Slater argued for quantum‐mechanical rigor, and the primacy of fundamental principles in models of chemical bonding. Coulson emphasized systematic explanatory power within chemistry, and continuity with existing chemical explanations. I relate these views to the epistemic contexts of their disciplines.
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  11. Emergence vs. Reduction in Chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2010 - In Graham Macdonald & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
  12. Philosophy of chemistry.Michael Weisberg, Paul Needham & Robin Hendry - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Chemistry is the study of the structure and transformation of matter. When Aristotle founded the field in the 4th century BCE, his conceptual grasp of the nature of matter was tailored to accommodate a relatively simple range of observable phenomena. In the 21st century, chemistry has become the largest scientific discipline, producing over half a million publications a year ranging from direct empirical investigations to substantial theoretical work. However, the specialized interest in the conceptual issues arising in chemistry, hereafter Philosophy (...)
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  13.  17
    Elements and (first) principles in chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 14):3391-3411.
    The first principle of chemical composition is that elements are actually present in their compounds. It is a golden thread running through the history of compositional thinking in chemistry since before the chemical revolution. Opposed to this principle, which I call Actually Present Elements (APE), is the idea that elements are merely potentially present in their compounds: although not actually present, it is possible to recover them. In this paper I follow that golden thread, and then discuss the status of (...)
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  14.  47
    Structure as Abstraction.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):1070-1081.
    In this article I argue that structure in chemistry is a creature of abstraction: attending selectively to structural similarities, we neglect differences. There are different ways to abstract, so abstraction is interest dependent. So is structure. First, there are two different and mutually irreducible notions of structure in chemistry: bond structure and geometrical structure. Second, structure is relative to scale : the same substance has different structures at different scales, and relationships of structural sameness and difference vary across the scales. (...)
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  15.  69
    Entropy and Chemical Substance.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (5):921-932.
    In this essay I critically examine the role of entropy of mixing in articulating a macroscopic criterion for the sameness and difference of chemical substances. Consider three cases of mixing in which entropy change occurs: isotopic variants, spin isomers, and populations of atoms in different orthogonal quantum states. Using these cases I argue that entropy of mixing tracks differences between physical states, differences that may or may not correspond to a difference of substance. It does not provide a criterion for (...)
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  16.  19
    Substantial confusion.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2006 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (2):322-336.
    In this paper I defend, against Eric Scerri’s objections, the following theses: that Lavoisier and Mendeleev shared a ‘core conception’ of chemical element, and that this core conception underwrites referential continuity in the names of particular elements.Keywords: Antoine Lavoisier; Dmitri Mendeleev; Chemical elements; Substance; Natural kinds; Reference.
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  17.  19
    Molecular Models and the Question of Physicalism.Robin F. Hendry - 1999 - Hyle 5 (2):117 - 134.
    By their own account, physicalists are committed to the claim that physics is causally complete, or closed. The claim is presented as an empirical one. However, detailed and explicit empirical arguments for the claim are rare. I argue that molecular models are a key source of evidence but that, on closer inspection, they do not support the completeness claim.
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  18.  10
    The Routledge Handbook of Emergence.Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry & Tom Lancaster (eds.) - 2019 - New York: Routledge.
    The Routledge Handbook of Emergence is an outstanding reference source and exploration of the concept of emergence, and is the first collection of its kind.
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  19.  76
    Introduction: Historiography and the philosophy of the sciences.Robin Findlay Hendry & Ian James Kidd - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 55:1-2.
    The history of science and the philosophy of science have a long and tangled relationship. On the one hand, philosophical reflection on science can be guided, shaped, and challenged by historical scholarship—a process begun by Thomas Kuhn and continued by successive generations of ‘post-positivist’ historians and philosophers of science. On the other hand, the activity of writing the history of science raises methodological questions concerning, for instance, progress in science, realism and antirealism, and the semantics of scientific theories, questions which (...)
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  20.  96
    (1 other version)Are realism and instrumentalism methodologically indifferent?Robin Findlay Hendry - 2001 - Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2001 (3):S25-.
    Arthur Fine and André Kukla have argued that realism and instrumentalism are indifferent with respect to scientific practice. I argue that this claim is ambiguous. One interpretation is that for any practice, the fact that that practice yields predictively successful theories is evidentially indifferent between scientific realism and instrumentalism. On the second construal, the claim is that for any practice, adoption of that practice by a scientist is indifferent between their being a realist or instrumentalist. I argue that there are (...)
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  21. Aspects of the Concept of Potentiality in Chemistry.Paul Needham & Robin Hendry - 2018 - In Kristina Engelhard & Michael Quante (eds.), Handbook of Potentiality. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 375-400.
  22. (1 other version)How to do things with theories: an interactive view of language and models in science.Robin F. Hendry & Stathis Psillos - 2007 - In Jerzy Brzezinski, Andrzej Klawiter, Theo A. F. Kuipers, Krzysztof Lastowski, Katarzyna Paprzycka & Piotr Przybysz (eds.), The Courage of Doing Philosophy: Essays Dedicated to Leszek Nowak. Rodopi. pp. 123--157.
  23.  72
    The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Emergence.Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry & Tom Lancaster (eds.) - 2018 - New York: Routledge.
    Emergence is often described as the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: interactions among the components of a system lead to distinctive novel properties. It has been invoked to describe the flocking of birds, the phases of matter and human consciousness, along with many other phenomena. Since the nineteenth century, the notion of emergence has been widely applied in philosophy, particularly in contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and metaphysics. It has more recently (...)
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  24.  38
    Structure, essence and existence in chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2023 - Ratio 36 (4):274-288.
    Philosophers have often debated the truth of microstructural essentialism about chemical substances: whether or not the structure of a chemical substance at the molecular scale is what makes it the substance it is. Oddly they have tended to pursue this debate without identifying what a structure is, and with some confusion and about what a chemical substance is. In this paper I draw on chemistry to rectify those omissions, providing a pluralist account of structure, clarifying what (according to chemistry) a (...)
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  25.  43
    Scientific Realism and the History of Chemistry.Robin Hendry - 2018 - Spontaneous Generations 9 (1):108-117.
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  26.  12
    Mechanisms in Chemistry.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2023 - In João L. Cordovil, Gil Santos & Davide Vecchi (eds.), New Mechanism Explanation, Emergence and Reduction. Springer. pp. 139-160.
    Mechanisms are the how of chemical reactions. Substances are individuated by their structures at the molecular scale, so a chemical reaction is just the transformation of reagent structures into product structures. Explaining a chemical reaction must therefore involve different hypotheses about how this might happen: proposing, investigating and sometimes eliminating different possible pathways from reagents to products. One distinctive aspect of mechanisms in chemistry is that they are broken down into a few basic kinds of step involving the breaking and (...)
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  27. Quantum mechanics, experiment and disunity. Comment on Peter Mittelstaedt.R. F. Hendry - 1998 - Philosophia Naturalis 35 (1):153-159.
     
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  28.  64
    Realism and Progress: Why Scientists should be Realists.Robin Findlay Hendry - 1995 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 38:53-72.
    For as long as realists and instrumentalists have disagreed, partisans of both sides have pointed in argument to the actions and sayings of scientists. Realists in particular have often drawn comfort from the literal understanding given even to very theoretical propositions by many of those who are paid to deploy them. The scientists' realism, according to the realist, is not an idle commitment: a literal understanding of past and present theories and concepts underwrites their employment in the construction of new (...)
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  29.  77
    Immanent philosophy of X.Robin Hendry - unknown
    In this paper I examine the relationship between historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, and indeed scientists themselves. I argue that they co-habit a shared intellectual territory ; and they should be able to do so peacefully, and with mutual respect, even if they disagree radically about how to describe the methods and results of science. I then go on to explore some of the challenges to mutually respectful cohabitation between history, philosophy and sociology of science. I conclude by identifying (...)
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  30.  13
    Kinetics, Models, and Mechanism.Robin Findlay Hendry - 2013 - In Ulrich Gähde, Stephan Hartmann & Jörn Henning Wolf (eds.), Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 221-228.
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  31. Progress in chemistry : a cumulative and pluralist view.Robin Hendry - 2022 - In Yafeng Shan (ed.), New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress. New York: Routledge.
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  32. Review. Realism rescued: How scientific progress is possible. Jerrold L Aronson, R harré, Eileen Cornell way.R. F. Hendry & D. J. Mossley - 1999 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (1):175-179.
  33.  15
    Review. The creation of scientific effects. Jed Z Buchwald.R. Hendry - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (1):109-112.
  34. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol 6: Philosophy of Chemistry.Robin Hendry, Andrea Woody & Paul Needham (eds.) - 2012
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  35.  23
    Book reviews. [REVIEW]Robin Hendry - 1992 - Mind 101 (401):169-171.
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  36.  19
    Book Review: Jaap van Brakel: Philosophy of Chemistry: Between the Manifest and the Scientific Image Leuven University Press, Leuven, 2000, xiv + 246 pp., ISBN 90-5867-063-5. [REVIEW]Robin Findlay Hendry - 2005 - Foundations of Chemistry 7 (2):187-197.
  37.  33
    Review. [REVIEW]Robin Findlay Hendry - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (1):287-291.
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