Developmental Aspects of Contemporary Chemistry. Some Philosophical Reflections

The development of contemporary chemistry is surveyed, in an attempt at grasping philosophical consequences: first, chemical research has revealed a potentially endless diversity of matter, and an abysmal complexity of its organization at the molecular level. Second, we may conjecture from reflections on some aspects of chemical reactivity that, owing to the limitations of human investigative means, reality is chemically unfathomable beyond a certain limit. In some instances, this may impede our understanding of the functioning of natural systems in terms of molecular-structural organization. Third, the overall consistency of results obtained by applying different analytical methods in order to establish molecular identity, along with the fact that we are able to interpret a great many different phenomena coherently in terms of molecular structure, indicates that matter - far from being something undifferentiated, easily moldable by the experiment, as anti-realistic views of science presuppose - really possesses a structure at the molecular level; a structure that can be reorganized only according to a formal disposition inherent to matter itself.