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Internal realism and the problem of ontological autonomy: a critical note on Lombardi and Labarca

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Abstract

This paper discusses the proposal made by Lombardi and Labarca (Found Chem 7:125–148, 2005) that internal realism can secure the ontological autonomy of chemistry. I argue that internal realism is not, by itself, sufficient to accomplish this task. The fact that conceptual schemes may differ with respect to their theoretical virtues, and the possibility that the relations between them may be reductive undermine the premise that each conceptual scheme has an equal right to define its own ontology, which is a key premise in Lombardi and Labarca’s proposal.

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Notes

  1. For a response, see Lombardi and Labarca (2006).

  2. I am using the term “reduction” in the philosopher’s sense. In the physicist’s sense of the term, Einstein’s mechanics reduces to Newton’s. For the distinction between reduction in the philosopher’s sense and reduction in the physicist’s sense see Nickles (1973) and Batterman (2008).

  3. At the end of the 1980s, Putnam came to reject internal realism.

  4. Reductionist accounts that differ from Nagel’s have been offered by a number of authors, including Kemeny and Oppenheim (1956), Putnam and Oppenheim (1958), Kim (2005).

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  1. University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

    Alexandru Manafu

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  1. Alexandru Manafu
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Manafu, A. Internal realism and the problem of ontological autonomy: a critical note on Lombardi and Labarca. Found Chem 15, 225–228 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-012-9165-x

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