Latest Updates 2020

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In the first of 6 invited articles for the Royal Society of Chemistry's magazine, Chemistry World, Vanessa discusses the persistent purpose of chemistry for both science and philosophy.

In this blog post for Jargonium, Vanessa talks about chemistry's relation to quantum mechanics and summarises the main points she makes in her recently published paper on strong emergence. 

Vanessa article in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science examines ones of the most well-established views in philosophy of chemistry; namely Robin Hendry's account of the strong emergence of molecular structure. She presents Hendry's account and identifies three challenges that it faces in its current form.

In this article, Alex Franklin argues that multiple realisation shouldn't be seen as an obstacle to reduction. However, he acknowledges that certain cases of multiple realisation prompt us to ask an important question: how come the same phenomena is realised by multiple different systems? The paper goes on to set out a framework for how the reductionist can address such questions. 

In this essay, Francesca Bellazzi and Konrad v. Boyneburgk argue that virtue ethics and a broader notion of freedom of the will allow us to deal with the practical concerns about how an individual should behave during COVID-19 pandemic

This is the first blog post by Vanessa for the new philosophy and history of chemistry blog, Jargonium.  Vanessa introduces us to the philosophy of chemistry and describes the main topics that are addressed in this field. 

Sam Kimpton-Nye's Review of "The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism" by Alastair Wilson. 

For our first foray into online events, the MetaScience Project Team welcomes abstracts on the topic of Methodological Issues in the Metaphysics of Science. 

In this popular science article for The Conversation, Vanessa looks at the main questions that the MetaScience project is concerned with. She explains how these questions have been considered in philosophy so far, and presents the results that have been produced by our project. 

Vanessa Seifert's entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy examines how philosophy understands chemistry's relationship to physics. The article situates this discussion around the dilemma between reduction and emergence and aims to present all existing views on this debate. 

This workshop brings together philosophers working on formal ontology and metaphysics of science. The goal is to find new ways to apply work on ontological categories and formal ontological relations to case studies from the metaphysics of science.

Join the research teams from the ERC-funded projects FraMEPhys (Birmingham) and MetaScience (Bristol) for talks and discussion.  There will also be opportunity to explore the famous Pitt Rivers Museum.   

Vanessa Seifert argues that it is an idealisation in chemistry and in quantum mechanics that an isolated molecule is stable and has structure. She then investigates how this idealisation informs our understanding of various philosophical issues. 

A workshop organized jointly by the MetaScience project and Rutgers-Newark. Local organizer: Ken Aizawa.  Join us for talks and discussion on 'The Metaphysical Unity of Science'. 

In this paper, which is an exercise in formal ontology – an area of research concerning fundamental ontological categories and their relations – Markku Keinänen (Tampere) and Tuomas Tahko examine the tempting idea that there could be just one fundamental ontological category.  

This paper is based on a pilot study for the MetaScience project. The project concerns inter-level relationships between the natural sciences and here the target is the interface between biology and chemistry, specifically, biochemical kinds such as proteins.