Mereologies as the Grammars of Chemical Discourses
نویسندگان
چکیده
Since Robert Boyle’s corpuscularian philosophy, chemistry has been a mereological science. Displacing the metaphysics of `continuous substances’ and `qualities’ as the expression of “principles”, chemistry has been built on a `part-whole’ metaphysics. The grammar for the use of `part-whole’ concepts is mereology. Taking chemistry to be the science of the transformation of substances by the manipulation of their constituent material parts which are also bits of discrete substances, the elements, this science seems to fit the concepts of classical mereology neatly. The scheme has served as a popular and pedagogical foundation for chemical concepts and explanations in traditional chemical discourse. A sodium atom is a part of a molecule of sodium carbonate and also a part of the extended material substance, the element sodium.
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