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This book offers a comprehensive overview of an important notion to the field of chemistry: the chemical element.
Ruthenberg highlights the unique aspects of chemistry, specifically its metachemical fundamentals, which have been largely overlooked in current philosophies of science. Conventional metaphysics, derived from or focused on theoretical physics, is inadequate when applied to chemistry. The author examines and integrates historical and philosophical perspectives on important aspects of chemistry, including affinity, compositionism, emergence, synthesis/analysis, atomism/non-atomism, chemical species, chemical bond, chemical concepts, plurality, temporality/potentiality, reactivity, and underdetermination. To accomplish this, he draws on the works of notable chemists such as František Wald, Wilhelm Ostwald, Friedrich Paneth, and Hans Primas, who have contributed to the philosophical understanding of chemistry. The central conclusion of this study aligns with Immanuel Kant's viewpoint: Chemistry is a systematic art.
The author presents a new philosophy of science in the grand tradition that has recently been deemed impossible. Scerri believes that science develops as a holistic entity, which is fundamentally unified even though the individuals making up the body scientific are frequently in competition among each other. He draws inspiration from a conviction that the world is essentially unified in the way that has been described by both Western and Eastern philosophers. --
From the Atom to Living Systems represents an original historico-epistemological approach to follow the passage, in the microscopic analysis of reality, from the atomic to the molecular to the macromolecular levels and then to the threshold of life itself. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been developed in other works, some highly specialized and others of a more general nature. However, although this journey has often been traced in specialized scientific detail, the philosophical implications of the journey have not been discussed to any satisfactory degree. This scientific journey does have important philosophical consequences that constitute an integral part of this book, which...
One of the pillars of modern science, statistical mechanics, owes much to one man, the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). As a result of his unusual working and writing styles, his enormous contribution remains little read and poorly understood. The purpose of this book is to make the Boltzmann corpus more accessible to physicists, philosophers, and historians, and so give it new life. The means are introductory biographical and historical materials, detailed and lucid summaries of every relevant publication, and a final chapter of critical synthesis. Special attention is given to Boltzmann's theoretical tool-box and to his patient construction of lofty formal systems even before their full conceptual import could be known. This constructive tendency largely accounts for his lengthy style, for the abundance of new constructions, for the relative vagueness of their object--and for the puzzlement of commentators. This book will help the reader cross the stylistic barrier and see how ingeniously Boltzmann combined atoms, mechanics, and probability to invent new bridges between the micro- and macro-worlds.
The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance traces the evolution and development of the periodic table, from Mendeleev's 1869 first published table and onto the modern understanding provided by modern physics.
This volume is the first English resource to shed light on the philosophy of Joseph Petzoldt (1862-1929), the main pupil of Ernst Mach and founder of the Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, later the association of Berlin logical positivists. A central figure in the early debate on the theory of relativity, his work was praised by Einstein himself. Tracing the development of Petzoldt's ideas, starting from his early acceptance of materialism and Kantian agnosticism, Chiara Russo Krauss presents a comprehensive reconstruction of his philosophy in the context of the German milieu. She examines his attempt to develop a new philosophy following Gustav Fechner and the empiriocriticis...
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