This monograph deals with the interrelationship between chemistry and physics, and especially the role played by quantum chemistry as a theory in between these two disciplines.
Hinne Hettema is associated with the University of Auckland. He studied Chemistry and Philosophy at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, completing a PhD in 1993 (Chemistry) and 2012 (Philosophy). He is one of the authors of the Dalton quantum chemistry package.
1: Reduction: a model for the reduction of chemistry to physics.- Part I Explanatory Limits.- 2 Explaining the Chemical Bond: Idealisation and Concretisation.- 3 Molecular Structure: What Philosophers got wrong.- 4 The Theory of Absolute Reaction Rates.- 5 Quantum chemistry as a Research Programme.- Part II Formal Models.- 6 Reduction between structures: some issues and a proposal.- 7 Models for Quantum Chemistry.- 8 Reduction with Structures: Two examples.- Part III Ontological consequences.- 9 Orbitals and Ontology in the Philosophy of Chemistry.- 10 The ontology of chemistry.