The Metaphysical Unity of Science

Project Information

MetaScience

Grant agreement ID: 771509

DOI

10.3030/771509

Project closed

EC signature date 2 August 2018

Start date 1 September 2018

End date 31 August 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 995 304,00

EU contribution

€ 1 995 304,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MetaScience (The Metaphysical Unity of Science)

Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2023-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Metaphysical Unity of Science ('MetaScience') project pursues the question of what, if anything, unifies the natural sciences. The project studies the question from the perspective of metaphysics and philosophy of science by way of employing case studies from biology, chemistry, and physics.

What does it mean for one scientific phenomenon to be explained in terms of another? Under what conditions does scientific unification take place? In philosophy these questions are often discussed under the rubric of reduction. Typically, in asking whether one phenomenon reduces to another, we aim to understand what the ultimate or fundamental basis of the first phenomenon is. In the mid to late 20th century, there was a hope to reduce all higher level phenomena to fundamental physics. Yet, it was soon discovered that there are phenomena that cannot be easily reduced, so unification may not be available via this route.

The project ’s ambitious goal is to produce a novel account of unification. This is made possible by recent breakthroughs in the methodology of metaphysics, an area sometimes called “metametaphysics”. The project’s objectives are:

1. To establish the criteria for scientific unification
2. To conduct case studies of actual scientific reductions at the biology-chemistry and the chemistry-physics interfaces
3. To study the role of dependence relations weaker than reduction

A cross-disciplinarily applicable toolbox for unification would be enormously useful for identifying the kind of expertise needed for understanding a given phenomenon. This is not merely a philosophical problem. If there are reasons to think that a given biological phenomenon reduces to chemical phenomena, then biologists studying that phenomenon had better be prepared to consult and collaborate with the chemists. If a unification can be achieved, we can determine when scientists ought to consult their colleagues in other sciences and also when this is likely to be a hindrance instead of an advantage.

At the conclusion of the project, the team has surveyed a broad range of potential methods of unification and produced a wide ranging toolbox. This includes approaching unity of science from the point of view of natural kind monism, developing unified approached at specific interfaces (between biology and chemistry, and chemistry and physics), and studying the role of laws, powers, dispositions, models, emergence, reduction, and modality. The upshot is that there is not just one, but several ways that we may reach unification, and the relevant methods may need to be applied on a case to case basis.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The team examined numerous case studies concerning scientific unification as well as developed new tools for assessing and formulating claims about scientific unification. There have been significant achievements on all three sub-projects (foundations, chemistry-physics interface, and biology-chemistry interface):

For the foundations sub-project, the Unity of Science book (Tahko, Cambridge University Press, 2021) is a core reference work and analysis of the state of the art as well as open questions in this area. The book summarises the results from the first two years of the project and identifies foundational questions for the future, as well as giving an overview of some of the case studies conducted. The team has also worked on further explication of the key technical notions applied to the relevant case studies. These include relations of ontological dependence, reduction, realization, and emergence.

On the chemistry-physics interface, important work was been done on the status of chemical bonds, molecular structure, and the role of the measurement problem in quantum chemistry. In particular, the possibility of emergence in these contexts has been analysed meticulously, with the result that some claims for strong emergence in this area may have been exaggerated, and there is a need for reinterpretation of these results with a more rigorous analysis of emergence.

On the biology-chemistry interface, an important pilot study was published early on, concerning the inter-level relationships at the interface between biology and chemistry, specifically, biochemical kinds such as proteins. These kinds pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. A suggested upshot is that there are reasonable prospects for ontological reductionism about biochemical kinds, which corroborates natural kind monism. Further work conducted in this area include a detailed analysis the nature of biochemical functions and the status of genes, as well as the problem of biological individuality.

More theoretical work has involved an analysis of powers and dispositions and their relationship to functional laws, conservation laws, and symmetries, as well as an analysis of the role of modality in scientific modelling. The team have also researched the modal status of laws of nature, and the prospects of Humeanism with regard to many of the previously mentioned areas.

The results have been disseminated in nearly 30 papers in leading academic journals and publications, as well as in three monographs. There has also been a series of popular articles in venues such as Chemistry World, various blog posts and interviews, a podcast series, as well as active engagement via the project's social media channels.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has proceeded largely as planned in terms of academic work and has produced a wealth of knowledge on the present state of unity of science and related notions, such as emergence, reduction, and realization. Results going beyond the state of the art includes work both concerning the framework for unity of science in general as well as specific case studies which have so far been neglected or under-studied, e.g. the relationship of chemistry and biology in biochemical kinds and the status of molecular structure in chemistry. Specific results to highlight include the three monographs of the project: Unity of Science (Tahko, Cambridge University Press, 2021), Dispositions and Powers (Friend and Kimpton-Nye, Cambridge University Press, 2023), and Chemistry's Metaphysics (Seifert, Cambridge University Press, 2024).

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