Missing Elements and Missing Premises: A Combinatorial Argument for the Ontological Reduction of Chemistry

Does chemistry reduce to physics? If this means Can we derive the laws of chemistry from the laws of physics?', recent discussions suggest that the answer is no'. But sup posing that kind of reduction-- epistemological reduction'--to be impossible, the thesis of ontological reduction may still be true: that chemical properties are determined by more fundamental properties. However, even this thesis is threatened by some objections to the physicalist programme in the philosophy of mind, objections that generalize to the chemical case. Two objections are discussed: that physicalism is vacuous, and that nothing grounds the asymmetry of dependence which reductionism requires. Although it might seem rather surprising that the philosophy of chemistry is affected by shock waves from debates in the philosophy of mind, these objections show that there is an argumentative gap between, on the one hand, the theoretical connection linking chemical properties with properties at the sub-atomic level, and, on the other, the philosophical thesis of ontological reduction. The aim of this paper is to identify the missing premises (among them a theory of physical possibility) that would bridge this gap. Introduction: missing elements and the mystery of discreteness The refutation of physicalism A combinatorial theory of physical possibilia Combinatorialism and the Bohr model Objections The missing premises and a disanalogy with min

Time, and the static image

Photographs, paintings, rigid sculptures: all these provide examples of static images. It is true that they change-photographs fade,paintings darken and sculptures crumble-but what change they undergo (unless very damaging) is irrelevant to their representational content. A static image is one that represents by virtue of properties which remain largely unchanged throughout its existence. Because of this defining feature, according to a long tradition in aesthetics, a static image can only represent an instantaneous moment, or to be more exact the state of affairs obtaining at that moment'. It cannot represent movement and the passage of time. This traditional vieu- mirrors a much older one in metaphysics: that change is to be conceived of as a series of instantaneous states and hence that an interval of time is composed of extensionless moments. The metaphysical view has been involved in more controversy than its aesthetic counterpart. Aristotle identified it as one of the premises of Zeno's arrow paradoxZ and Augustine employed it in his proof of the unreality of time. The aesthetic view, for its part, was subjected to a blistering attack in Ernst Gombrich's brilliant essay 'Moment and movement in Art'", uhich persuasively argues, not only against the doctrine that the changeless cannot represent change, but also against the very idea of an instant of time. Still, Gombrich overstates his case. Is the idea of an instant simply a philosophers' fiction? And if we allow such an idea into our conception of the world, are we thereby committed to a mistaken view of pictorial representation? Implicit in Gombrich's argument is a link between depiction and perception. But what is this link, and what role does it play in the argument? I propose in this essay to take another look at the question of what time-span is represented by the static image, and consider whether answering this question presupposes a view of time and change. I shall begin with a brief resume of Gombrich's discussion

Space, supervenience and substantivalism

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] Consider a straight line on a flat surface running from point A to C and passing though B. Suppose the distance AB to be four inches, and the distance BC to be six inches. We can infer that the distance AC is ten inches. Of all geometrical inferences, this is surely one of the simplest. Of course, things are a little more complicated if the surface is not flat. If A, B and C are points on a sphere, then the shortest distance between A and C may be smaller (it may even be zero). We can make our inference immune from concerns about non-Euclidean spaces, however, by qualifying it as follows: if AB = n, and BC = m, then, in the direction A⇒B⇒C, the distance AC is n + m. This is apparently entirely trivial. But trivial truths can hide significant ontological ones. Let us translate our mathematical example to the physical world, and suppose A, B and C to be points, still in a straight line, but now at the centre of gravity of three physical objects

A puzzle concerning time perception

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception – specifically perception of order and duration – since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are (it is argued) not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are examined. The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow

Analytic Metaphysics versus Naturalized Metaphysics: The Relevance of Applied Ontology

The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman & Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French & McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on a parallel by French & McKenzie between mathematics and metaphysics to show that the whole field of analytic metaphysics, being useful not only for philosophy but also for science, should continue to exist as a largely autonomous field

Exploring dynamic lighting, colour and form with smart textiles

This paper addresses an ongoing research, aiming at the development of smart textiles that transform the incident light that passes through them – light transmittance – to design dynamic light without acting upon the light source. A colour and shape change prototype was developed with the objective of studying textile changes in time; to explore temperature as a dynamic variable through electrical activation of the smart materials and conductive threads integrated in the textile substrate; and to analyse the relation between textile chromic and morphologic behaviour in interaction with light. Based on the experiments conducted, results have highlighted some considerations of the dynamic parameters involved in the behaviour of thermo-responsive textiles and demonstrated design possibilities to create interactive lighting scenarios.This work is supported by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE and National Funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of the projects SFRH/BD/87196/2012, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and UID/CTM/00264. The authors also like to acknowledge Smart Textiles Design Lab for the support on the prototype development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

McTaggart's paradox and Smith's tensed theory of time

Since McTaggart first proposed his paradox asserting the unreality of time, numerous philosophers have attempted to defend the tensed theory of time against it. Certainly, one of the most highly developed and original is that put forth by Quentin Smith. Through discussing McTaggart's positive conception of time as well as his negative attack on its reality, I hope to clarify the dispute between those who believe in the existence of the transitory temporal properties of pastness, presentness and futurity , and those who deny their existence. We shall see that the debate centers around the ontological status of succession and the B-relations of earlier and later . I shall argue that Smith's tensed theory fails because he cannot account for the sense in which events have their tensed properties successively, and he cannot account for the direction of time.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43817/1/11229_2004_Article_BF00413606.pd