Why be cyrptic about chemisty?

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Desertwisdom
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Re: Why be cyrptic about chemisty?

Post by Desertwisdom »

I would be interested if anyone has heard a lecture on a subject in the Philosophy of Chemistry (and is there such a thing?). I once heard a lecture on a subject in the Philosophy of Biology. I believe it was something relating to developmental biology, but don't remember much at all. Most of the work in the Philosophy of Science appears to deal with Physics. Maybe Chemistry has to get down to the subatomic level in order to be relevant to philosophers. I wonder if there is such a thing as a fundamental particle!
Steve3007
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Re: Why be cyrptic about chemisty?

Post by Steve3007 »

Sounds like things have changed. Back in the day the three Physical sciences were physics, chemistry and mathematics. Biology was considered a semi-soft science and the Social Sciences were very squishy.
I don't think mathematics was ever considered a physical science was it? Back in the day, at least in UK Universities, it was studied as a BA (Bachelor of Arts) not a BSc (Bachelor of Science). I think these days you can choose which type of degree you get. It's traditionally been regarded as an art. Bertrand Russell compared it to sculpture.

-- Updated Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:48 am to add the following --

Eluhorem:
Like a lot of "cryptic" conventions in science and math, it's just an inconvenience that these words were traditionally used, so they've been taught that way even as new and more comprehensive ideas were uncovered.
Yes, words stick. The word "atom" is a classic example. The inconvenience and confusion caused by changing the name we use for a ball of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons outweighs the inaccuracy of still using a word that implies indivisibility.
An example from math is the convention of calling multiples of the constant i (sqrt(-1)) "imaginary", when they're anything but.
It could also be argued that all numbers are imaginary - in the sense that they're abstract concepts, whether they're labelled as "real" or "imaginary". But I think it can also still be argued that multiplies of i are further removed from a direct one-to-one mapping with physical objects than "real" numbers - a greater level of abstraction in a world of abstractions (mathematics). So the "real/imaginary" division is not unreasonable.
Dolphin42
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Re: Why be cyrptic about chemisty?

Post by Dolphin42 »

DesertWisdom:
Most of the work in the Philosophy of Science appears to deal with Physics. Maybe Chemistry has to get down to the subatomic level in order to be relevant to philosophers.
I think that to be philosophically interesting it has to either have a human (and therefore a moral) element to it, or it has to be so far from everyday human experience that it poses questions about the nature of reality. Biology achieves the former, by covering such things as the Theory of Evolution and the definition of life, feeding into such things as the abortion debate. Physics does the latter by considering what happens on far-from-human scales of time and distances. Chemistry is stuck in the middle.
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