Philosophy of computational chemistry

Philosophy of the computational chemistry

 Even a simple search of the modern literature on the philosophy of science reveals very interesting fact[1,2]: while there are some subdisciplines - the philosophy of biology or the philosophy of physics, for example, - one of the fundamental sciences is absent. There is no philosophy of chemistry. Certainly, there are a number of publications, which illuminate these or other philosophical problems in chemistry. However, if the quality of this literature very high, then its quantity is very low. Why is this situation prevailing?

 Can philosophers really say there is nothing interesting about chemistry as the scientific discipline? In fact, the common opinion is, that chemistry can be easily downgraded to the level of physics or, at least, the philosophy of chemistry can be possible brought down to the philosophy of physics [3].

 In the second-half of the XX century organic chemistry entered the new phase of its development. Intensive development of computational technology led to the effective use of calculation methods in chemistry. The usage of the quantum-chemical calculations does allow scientists to simulate the mechanisms of different reactions computationally, including computations of the highly reactive intermediates, which, for the objective reasons, cannot be fixed experimentally. All this led to the intensive and effective development of discipline, which stands on the border between physics and chemistry - the computational chemistry.


 [1] Eric R. Scerri And Lee Mcintyre, The Case For The Philosophy Of Chemistry Synthese 111: 213–232, 1997.

 [2] Synthese Vol. 69, No. 3 (December 1986).

 [3] Philosophy of Science Association (1994) on “The Philosophy of Chemistry”. Published in PSA 1994, Vol. 1 (East Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1994).