Abstract
A critique of LaPorte's views on chemical kinds, like jade and ruby, is presented. More positively, a new slant is provided on the question of whether elements are natural kinds. This is carried out by appeal to the dual nature of elements, a topic that has been debated in the philosophy of chemistry but not in the natural kinds literature. It is claimed that the abstract notion of elements, as opposed to their being simple substances, is relevant to the Kripke–Putnam approach to natural kinds and to some criticisms that have been raised against it, although I do not support the K–P account. The proposed view avoids the traditional microstructuralist approach to natural kinds. The article also addresses the question of whether natural kinds concern metaphysical or epistemological considerations. Recent attempts by chemists to modify the periodic table are brought to bear on the question of classification and consequently on whether the identification of elements is interest dependent.
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Notes
Vandewall has written a critique of Ellis’ views and considers that his chemical essentialism cannot be maintained (Vandewall 2007).
But as I argue below this is not so much a case of importing something new but of recognizing the metaphysical dimension of the scientific definition of elements as elaborated by Paneth and sanctioned by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
The terminology of element as simple substance as opposed to basic substance is due to Heinz Post, while he was in the process of translating his father’s (Paneth’s) now classic article on the nature of elements (Paneth 1962).
Among other recent work on chemical natural kinds, Bursten presents an account which appears to be a compromise between the essentialist and non-essentialist view (Bursten 2014). Stated otherwise, Bursten accepts a strong microstructuralist component to the identification of chemical kinds but resists going fully-microstructuralist. This is because Bursten believes that a structural description, of the atoms of an element for example, must supplement the stipulation that they be identified through their atomic number as Kripke and Putnam would have it. However, it appears that Bursten’s concession to the anti-microstructuralist makes for a somewhat watered down compromise. To the present author at least, it seems to be too easy to reach for an intermediate position between the two major approaches to the identification of chemical kinds.
As I have argued in a recent article, the person responsible for conceiving of atomic number was the Dutch econometrician, Anton Van den Broek (Scerri 2018).
In fact LaPorte seems to be arguing for an alternative composition rather than microstructure, a point that has been discussed in detail by Paul Needham but which will not be pursued in the present article.
LaPorte tries to anticipate my objection but appears to dismiss it rather lightly.
The tendency to retain common names for chemical compounds is greater in the US where one also frequently encounters the names acetylene for C2H2 and ethylene for C2H4. The present author who studied high school chemistry in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the UK, was expected to know the systematic names of ethyne and ethane respectively for these two compounds.
Surely LaPorte means to say “same composition” here, not “same structure”. Diamond and graphite do not have the same structure. It is by introducing the difference in structure, perhaps in the manner recommended by Bursten, that one can make sense of the difference between these two allotropes of carbon.
In fact there is now known to be a third allotrope of pure carbon, the or C60 molecule, called buckminsterfullere.
Bursten claims that she is not playing it both ways in embracing the microstructuralist as well as the macroscopic/descriptive approach. She argues that whereas the traditional micro-stucturalist bases her identification of a kind entirely on microstructure, she proposes to merely ground her own account on micro-structure as supplemented with information regarding structure. I for one am not convinced by this move and suggest that Bursten is taking the ‘middle path’ and therefore essentially avoiding the question of microstructuralist versus anti-microstructuralist.
Similar questions are raised by Bhushan and Rosenfeld concerning the distinction between naturally occurring compounds and those that are synthesized (Bhushan and Rosenfeld 2000).
This terminology is due to a translation of the German term Grundstoff that according to some authors does not imply any kind of substance whatsoever, since to the scientific community a substance is precisely something that can be instantiated whereas Grundstoff cannot be. The only sense in which Grundstoff can be regarded as a substance is in the more philosophical sense of the term whereby a substance is a bearer of properties and underlies or subsists below the familiar sensible properties of any element (Earley 2005).
Hacking has emphasized the differences between Kripke and Putnam’s versions of what I am calling the Kripke-Putnam theory. For the purposes of this article I will however maintain the common practice of lumping these two approaches together (Hacking 1991).
A fuller discussion of this issue would necessitate examining how one makes distinctions between chemical and physical properties which to my mind is a largely unproductive exercise.
Some readers may believe that this step was taken by Moseley or even Van den Broek (Scerri 2018). However, although the role of atomic number was first elaborated by these researchers it was Paneth who first gave the modern definition of a chemical element using the concept of atomic number (Kragh 2001).
Paneth and Hevesy showed that the electrochemical potential from two cells made from different isotopes of the metal bismuth was the same as far as experimental techniques of the day could distinguish (Scerri 2000).
The fact that more recent research has revealed some differences even in the chemical properties of isotopes does not alter the central issue under discussion.
Recently Brad Wray has argued that the discovery of isotopes and the change from using atomic weight to using atomic number to characterize elements represented what he calls a “classic Kuhnian revolution” (Wray 2018).
These physically unrealiseable atoms have an atomic weight that is the weighted average of the weights of all its isotopes. All these isotopes share the same atomic number but they are different entities depending on their weights.
Whether the discovery of isotopes is regarded as part of physics or chemistry is beside the point. The point is rather that in discussing natural kinds one needs to stop at a certain point in the reductive hierarchy, otherwise all putative natural kinds eventually dissolve into mere fluctuations in the quantum mechanical vacuum.
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Scerri, E.R. On Chemical Natural Kinds. J Gen Philos Sci 51, 427–445 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-020-09511-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-020-09511-9