Videos by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
Lecture Series on "Renaissance Magic and Medicine" - Sponsored by the National Library of Medicin... more Lecture Series on "Renaissance Magic and Medicine" - Sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health 33 views
Books by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
Oxford University Press, 2023
This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresho... more This book represents an original journey beginning from the atom to macromolecules to the thresholds of life. Naturally, some parts of this journey have been discussed and developed in other books, some highly specialized and others of a more general nature.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle sought to accommodate his complex chemical philo... more This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle sought to accommodate his complex chemical philosophy within the framework of a mechanistic theory of matter. More specifically, the book proposes that Boyle regarded chemical qualities as properties that emerge from the mechanistic structure of chymical atoms. Within Boyle’s chemical ontology, chymical atoms are structured concretions of particles that Boyle considered to be chemically elementary entities, that is, chemical wholes that resist experimental analysis. Although this interpretation of Boyle’s chemical philosophy has already been suggested by other Boyle scholars, the present book provides a sustained philosophical argument to demonstrate that, for Boyle, chemical properties are dispositional, relational, emergent, and supervenient properties. This argument is strengthened by a detailed mereological analysis of Boylean chymical atoms that establishes the kind of theory of wholes and parts that is most consistent with an emergentist conception of chemical properties within Boylean chemical ontology. The emergentist position that is being attributed to Boyle supports his view that chemical reactions resist direct explanation in terms of the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles, as well as his position regarding the scientific autonomy of chymistry from mechanics and physics.
Edited Books by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
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Videos by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
Books by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
Edited Books by Marina P Banchetti (also: Banchetti-Robino)
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.
The Swiss alchemist, physician, and astrologer Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), known as Paracelsus, was one of the most important representatives of 16th century vitalism and Neoplatonism. More specifically, both his metaphysics and his cosmology are heavily indebted to Renaissance vitalism and hermeticism. This essay elaborates on these ideas, emphasizing the relationship between Paracelsus’s vitalistic cosmology and his medical and spagyric theories. The essay first establishes the philosophical context of paracelsian thought and specifically examines the Renaissance vitalism, as well as the concepts of semina rerum and of minima naturalia, both of which contributed to the development of the unique particulate theories of matter prevalent in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Finally, the essay discusses Paracelsus’s metaphysical and cosmological theories and the way in which these theories were tied to his vitalistic spagyria. More particularly, the emphasis is placed on the way in which Paracelsus appropriates the particulate theory of matter and infuses it with various vitalistic elements, in order to develop his spagirical therapies and his ontological theory of illness.
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/site/husserl2019/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
Keynote Speakers:
• Manuel DeLanda (European Graduate School / Princeton University), author of "Philosophical Chemistry: Genealogy of a Scientific Field" (2015).
• Eric R. Scerri (University of California, Los Angeles), author of "A Tale of Seven Elements" (2013)
Please see the conference website at https://sites.google.com/a/fau.edu/ispc2016/ or https://sites.google.com/site/ispc2016/ for more information about the organization and the conference.
This presentation argues that classical extensional and summative mereology cannot in fact adequately describe the whole–parts relations within higher-order wholes, in which the properties of the whole cannot be formalized as a simple summation of the properties of the individual parts.
I wish to propose that the behavioral mereology by Fong, Myers, and Spivak is a promising candidate for the type of non-standard mereology that can accommodate the context-dependence of whole/parts relations within quantum chemical systems. According to behavioral mereology, considerations of what constitutes a part of a whole are dependent upon the observable behavior displayed by these entities. Thus, relationality and context-dependence are stipulated from the outset and this makes behavioral mereology particularly well-suited for formalizing whole-parts relations in quantum chemical wholes.
The shift away from vitalism and toward mechanicism was gradual rather than abrupt, and aspects of vitalism and of mechanicism coexisted in interesting ways within the chemical ontologies of many early modern chymists. In spite of the tensions between these two opposing metaphysical paradigms, one important thread that connects early modern chymical theories, whether vitalistic or mechanistic, is their ontological commitment to corpuscular theories of matter.
The historical process whereby ancient Democritean atomism was revived in the 16th century is quite complex, but it would be a mistake to assume that particulate theories of matter need imply a commitment to physicalism and mechanicism. In fact, although the atomism of such natural philosophers as Gassendi and Charleton was indeed mechanistic, one finds many examples of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern that embraced vitalistic metaphysics while endorsing a corpuscularian theory of matter.
As it happens, there is strong evidence to show that, for much of the 17th century, chemical philosophers adopted a view of matter that was both ontologically corpuscularian and metaphysically vitalistic. In other words, these chemical philosophers adhered to a particulate matter theory while also embracing the idea that chemical qualities and operations involved the action of vital spirits and ferments.
This presentation examines these ideas by focusing on some of the more significant transitional chemical philosophies of the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to establish how chymists at this time adhered to complex corpuscularian ontologies that could not be subsumed under either a purely vitalistic or a purely mechanistic metaphysical framework.
To this end, I will focus on the chemical philosophies of Jan Baptista van Helmont, Daniel Sennert, Sebastian Basso, and Pierre Gassendi and the contributions that each of these important figures made to the subtle and graduate shift from vitalism to mechanicism.
I also hope to show that the demise of vitalistic metaphysics did not result from the victory of reductionistic mechanicism but, rather, from the physicalistic and naturalistic rationalization of chemical qualities and processes that opened the door for Lavoisier to articulate his quantitative and operational conception of simple substances.
Although quite a bit has been written by philosophers of chemistry about the ontology of nanomaterials, this paper proposes to address the question of epistemic access to nanomaterials. This question will be addressed from the perspective of the phenomenology of technology, since this approach can provide important insights regarding nanotechnology’s ability to yield transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials. In fact, I will argue that nanotechnology lends itself to the same sort of phenomenological analysis as other technologies (such as nuclear reactors) in which direct epistemic access to the product of the technology is not possible due to the nature and/or features of that product. To argue this point, I will consider what philosophers of chemistry have proposed regarding the ontology of nanomaterials, since ontological questions affect whether or not transparent epistemic access to nanomaterials is possible at all. I will conclude that, in the case of nanotechnology, direct epistemic access is not possible because of the extremely small scale of nanomaterials, which must therefore be engineered and handled via mediating devices.
I will argue that this ‘mediated access’ creates a relation between the chemical engineer and the engineered nanomaterials that requires the chemical engineer to infer what is happening at the nanoscale by interpreting the information provided by mediating devices. Because of this interpretive inference, the epistemic relation between the engineer and the engineered product is referred to as a ‘hermeneutic intentionality relation’. However, the indirect and interpretive nature of this epistemic relation increases the probability of ‘misreading’ what is occurring at the nanoscale and of unintended exposure to the nanomaterials being manipulated. Due to the nature of the technology and of the engineered materials, the problem of indirect epistemic access and of possible misinterpretation are problems that are inherent to nanotechnology itself and that persists regardless of how the methods for handling nanoproducts are modified. This analysis will conclude that, from the standpoint of safety, there are serious reasons for concern regarding nanotechnology due to the toxicological and environmental effects that may result from accidental direct or indirect exposure to nanomaterials. These concerns stem from the fact that, among other things, the phenomenological limits of the epistemic access is endemic to nanotechnology itself.
In fact, he does not believe that chemical reactions occur at the fundamental level of particles but that they take place between corpuscular concretions that are differentiated by means of their chemical properties. He calls such corpuscular concretions 'chymical atoms' because he regards them as semi-stable entities that cannot be further reduced by the methods of chemical analysis of his time. For Boyle, differentiation among chemical properties does not originate directly in the mechanical properties of the fundamental particles but in the texture or micro-structure of the 'chymical atoms' involved in a reaction.
What I hope to demonstrate here is that, although Boyle regards micro-structure itself as a mechanical property of chymical atoms, he is not a strict reductionist with regard to chemical properties. To make this argument, I discuss the hierarchy of properties in Boyle's chemical ontology, his view of chemical properties as dispositional and relational, and finally his view of chemical properties as emergent, supervenient, and ontologically underdetermined. I support these arguments with a significant number of excerpts from Boyle's writings that indicate an emergentist view of chemical properties, although he obviously does not use our own contemporary vocabulary to articulate this emergentist position.
While, in its early history, the concept of element referred to empirical substances that were believed to constitute every other material substance, the notion of atom referred to absolutely fundamental entities that marked the limits of any possible reduction and that, as such, could not ever be experience or measured.
In spite of the early modern rehabilitation of atomicity as a chymical concept, this notion falls by the wayside once more during the Chemical Revolution, as Lavoisier’s desire for the development of a chemical science leads him to reject all metaphysical speculation about the nature of atoms and to focus chemical theory and experiment on the empirical isolation and quantitative description of ‘elementary’ substances, defined as the final products of chemical analysis.
It is not until the 19th century and the work of Dalton that the concept of atom is, once again, reintroduced into chemistry and that it becomes inextricably linked to the notion of elementarity. Rather than defining elements in terms of the limits of analysis, as Lavoisier had done, Dalton defines an element as a substance that is composed entirely of atoms with identical properties. Referring to such atoms as ‘chemical atoms’ and considering these as empirical and measurable entities, Dalton considers the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms to be their relative weight. He stipulates that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the relative weights of the atoms that compose those elements.
By thus reconciling the concept of ‘atomicity’ and ‘elementarity’ and rendering both as empirical notions, amenable to measurement and quantitative description, one of the central goals of Dalton’s chemical atomic theory becomes the understanding of how the relative weight of chemical atoms determines the properties of elements and of how the chemical atoms of different elements combine to form compound substances.
What this paper wishes to argue, however, is that concern over microstructure, albeit understood differently than it is today, also informs the chemical philosophy of Robert Boyle (1627-1691). Boyle’s conception of microstructure is an attempt to reconcile the notion that universal matter uniformly consists of indivisible fundamental corpuscles endowed with exclusively mechanical affections with the seemingly incompatible notion that different species of matter (gold, lead, silver, etc.) exist in nature and have unique essential and chemical properties that distinguish them from other species and that these properties remain unaltered by merely mechanical changes to material bodies. To reconcile these two notions, Boyle claims that each species of matter consists of complex structural aggregations of fundamental particles that he refers to as ‘chymical atoms’. The specific microstructure of these ‘chymical atoms’, understood in geometric terms, accounts for the unique essential properties of different substances. For Boyle, since such properties are causally efficacious in chemical reactions, they are chemical properties. According to Boyle, to the extent that the essential properties of a substance resist alteration even by the most powerful means of chemical analysis of his time, the microstructure of its ‘chymical atoms’ must be semi-permanent. Thus, ‘chymical atoms’ are stable entities that are operationally irreducible, even if they are not ontologically fundamental. Boyle employs several experiments to establish the stability of ‘chymical atoms’, the most important and effective of which is the reduction to the pristine state. Therefore, although Boyle adheres to the mechanical philosophy regarding ontologically fundamental corpuscles, he also holds a structural theory of matter that allows him to explain the stability of corpuscular aggregations and the causal efficacy of chemical properties in a manner not allowed by a strictly reductionist mechanical philosophy.
Thus, while it is generally believed that our contemporary concern over structural explanation is a function of modern chemistry’s emphasis on microstructure, this discussion of structural explanation in Boyle will serve as a case study to illustrate the manner in which many of our contemporary concerns have deeply historical origins and the manner in which the history of chemistry can substantively inform issues in contemporary philosophy of chemistry.
John Dalton, on the other hand, seeks to establish an empirical link between ‘elements’ and ‘atoms’, through the notion of ‘chemical atom’. The challenge for Dalton, however, is to avoid any metaphysical implications in his atomism by employing the experimental and quantitative criteria advanced by Lavoisier. Dalton purports to establish that chemical atoms are empirical entities, that is, that they have empirical and quantifiable features that can be experimentally determined. For Dalton, the primary determinable feature of chemical atoms is their weight. Dalton claims that, since elements are composed of atoms and since there are differences between elements, there must also be differences between the atoms that compose those elements. His chemical atomic theory seeks, among other things, to establish how the atoms of different elements combine to form compounds. He concludes that atoms of different weights combine differently, according to specific laws of proportion, to form the different elements.
What this paper seeks to establish is that, despite its flaws, Dalton’s chemical atomism represents the first major attempt at reconciling the empirical and quantitative criteria of modern chemistry with the long-standing theory of discrete particles that account for the fundamental nature of substances. With the support of experiment, analysis, and quantitative data regarding weights, Dalton establishes that chemical atoms have a demonstrable empirical status and are not, as Lavoisier had believed, suspect metaphysical entities.
The main purpose of this essay is to examine the Abelard’s zoosemiotic theory and to critique it from a Husserlian phenomenological perspective. I choose to examine Abelard’s theory from a Husserlian perspective because Edmund Husserl’s theory of intentionality is one of the most significant to emerge from 20th century philosophy. In pursuing this task, I will do three things. First, I will examine Abelard's zoosemiotic theory. Secondly, I will critique this theory from a Husserlian standpoint. Finally, I will propose a Husserlian solution to some of the problems and issues raised during the course of these discussions.
I hope to demonstrate through this analysis that, from a Husserlian perspective, when non-human animals engage in meaningful communicative behavior, they do partake of the higher, meaning-constituting sphere of intentionality. In other words, animals that communicate are not only capable of intuitive intentional acts but are also capable of objectifying signitive acts.
The paper will begin with a discussion of Boyle’s complex particulate theory according to which first-order corpuscles are described in terms of the mechanistic properties of shape, size, and motion, while second-order corpuscles are described as compound corpuscles endowed with chemical properties. Boyle’s writings on these topics suggest that he regarded the chemical properties as emergent properties of second-order corpuscles and denied that these properties originated directly from the mechanical properties of first-order corpuscles. Following this, I will discuss the manner in which Boyle sought to interpret his chemical experiments within the framework of this complex ontology. In particular, I will focus on one of Boyle’s most famous experiments, the redintegration of potassium nitrate (aerial niter or saltpeter). Boyle’s interpretation of the reconstitution of niter suggests that, for him, the nature of niter is heterogeneous and displays properties that are very different from those of the parts of which it is composed, although these properties arise from the mixture of these component parts.
Boyle’s interpretation of this experiment was not uncontroversial, however, and his attempt at explaining the results of the redintegration of niter in non-mechanistic terms was not without its critics. I will discuss the debate between Boyle and one of these critics, Spinoza, who attempted to reproduce Boyle’s experiments with niter but sought to provide a strictly Cartesian mechanistic interpretation of the results obtained. For Spinoza, Descartes’ a priori rationalistic method had succeeded in uncovering the real nature of matter, and Spinoza did not believe that Boyle’s experiments with niter had either amplified or improved on Descartes’ work.
Finally, following the discussion of the Boyle-Spinoza debate over the redintegration of niter, I will discuss how this debate illustrates a profound difference between the attitude of the experimental chemist and that of the Rationalist theoretician with regard to the role of experimental investigation in conceptualizing an adequate theory of matter. As Meinel explains, in the 17th century, “alleged experimental confirmations of mechanical hypotheses were far from being as conclusive as the theoreticians and experimentalists of the mechanical philosophy pretended.” Spinoza the theoretician, however, was intent on upholding the primacy of an a priori mechanistic ontology by forcing such a strict interpretation on experimental results that, in fact, suggested a different understanding of matter. On the other hand, a practicing chemist like Boyle was willing to be flexible and pragmatic in his reconciliation of mechanistic philosophy with the results of his experimental investigations. Boyle could thus account for the results of his experiments with niter by positing second-order compound corpuscles that displayed emergent chemical properties and could, thereby transcend the simplistic dichotomy of reduction/emergence, without having to negate his Cartesian mechanistic position on the nature of fundamental, first-order corpuscles.
The paper will begin with a brief discussion of the role of vitalism in Renaissance philosophy and of its relationship to hermeticism, Neoplatonism, and the Scholastic notion of occult properties. Special focus will be placed on the natural philosophies of Tommaso Campanella and Giordano Bruno. This short discussion will be followed by a more detailed account of how vitalism influenced work in alchemy and early chemistry, particularly that of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and Fludd. I will show that despite the vitalistic, hermetic, and quasi-mystical conceptions of reality embraced by each of these natural philosophers, each of them also embraced an empirical method and approach to the study and manipulation of nature that marks them as precursors to modern scientific methodology.
Following this, I will briefly discuss the mechanistic philosophy endorsed by the Cartesians and Newtonians and will then focus on the work of Robert Boyle as it represents a movement towards a mechanistic ontology and, in particular, towards a mechanistic approach to the study of chemistry. Yet, despite the fact that Boyle authored The Sceptical Chymist as a response to spagyrists and “alchymists”, he was himself a practicing alchemist who believed in the possibility of the transmutation of metals. Although he conveniently separated conceptually the functions of alchemy and chemistry, in order to account for both practices, he had to embrace an ontology that was not easily demarcated as completely mechanistic.
17th century natural philosophy, and chemical philosophy was no exception, was also marked by the debate between the Leibnizians and the Newtonians over the theory of matter, a debate that is intimately linked to that between vitalism and mechanism. Leibniz, ultimately, opposed the conception of matter as inert by virtue of the fact that, for him, all monads, including those that make up what we call ‘matter’ contain within them an inner force. This view clearly favors a vitalistic ontology. Newton, on the other hand, refuses to define force in vitalistic terms and, instead, defines it mathematically in terms of mass multiplied by acceleration. Despite differences of details in terms of how matter, force, and gravitation are described by the Cartesians and Newtonians, it is clear that the Newtonians embrace a mechanistic conception of nature and its laws. The resolution of this debate in favor of an unambiguous materialistic and mechanistic ontology ultimately impacts on the development of chemical philosophy as it culminates in the Chemical Revolution of the 18th century.
The atomic theory and its philosophical implications were treated in a detailed and specialized manner in many chemical history books such as J. Hudson, The History of Chemistry (Springer) and, in a more general manner, in B. Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press).
However, although the passage from the atom to the molecule has been treated in many specialized books, there are no books that treat this subject at the philosophical level. Similarly, the passage from molecules to macromolecules is very well developed at the scientifically specialized level, but it has not been treated in depth at the philosophical level. Finally, there are no books on the market that scientifically and philosophically trace the journey from atoms all the way through the many levels of complexity that take us to macromolecules and living organisms.
There are some books that consider the chemical and biochemical basis of life from a general and philosophical point of view, such as A. Pichot, Expliquer la vie, de l’âme à la molécule and F. Capra and P.F. Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge University Press).
This book is aimed at an audience that includes not only historians and philosophers of chemistry, but also philosophers of biology and of science in general, as well as scholars working in the human and social sciences. Given the general relevance of the arguments considered, this book is also addressed to practitioners of the natural sciences who are interested in philosophico-scientific themes and who consider philosophical reflections to be important also for scientific research. The problem of the animate and inanimate aspects of the world, the differences, similarities, and boundaries between them, is not only one of the most fascinating themes for scientific reflection but is also a fertile terrain for new ideas in scientific research.