Why there is

What, precisely, is 'salt'? It is a certain white, solid, crystalline, material, also called sodium chloride. Does any of that solid white stuff exist in the sea? — Clearly not. One can make salt from sea water easily enough, but that fact does not establish that salt, as such, is present in brine. (Paper and ink can be made into a novel — but no novel actually exists in a stack of blank paper with a vial of ink close by.) When salt dissolves in water, what is present is no longer 'salt' but rather a collection of hydrated sodium cations and chloride anions, neither of which is precisely salt, nor is the collection. The aqueous material in brine is also significantly different from pure water. Salt may be considered to be present in seawater, but only in a more or less vague 'potential' way. Actually, there is no salt in the sea. In both ancient and modern treatments of other important chemical concepts, including the notions of 'element,' related complication, especially polysemy (terms with multiple meanings), also occurs. In a recent paper, Paul Needham discussed the (predicable) properties of chemical substances, phases, and solutions. He provided a valuable characterization of cases in which several quantities occupy the same space. He also concluded that solution properties are not 'intensive,' because solvent and solute do not have parts in common. He tacitly assumed that ingredients are not altered by their inclusion in a solution. This may be the case in some special cases (deutero-benzene dissolved in benzene, say) but is not true in general—and certainly does 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Seventh Summer Symposium of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry at Tartu, Estonia, August. 2003. 1 Foundations of Chemistry Volume 7 (2005), pp 85-102. Running head: Why there is no salt in the sea not apply to the case of brine, which Needham used as an example — since the ions that exist in the solution, and also the aqueous material there, are quite different from the pure ingredients used in making the solution. An adequate theory of wholes and parts (mereology) must take into account that when individuals enter combinations of interesting sorts they no longer are the very same individuals that existed prior to the composition. It appears that no such formal theory now actually exists.