Philosophers sometimes discuss the “ontological status” of this or that kind of entity. They should be addressing one of the following questions, or the word ontological is being misused: 1. Does X exist? 2. Under what conditions can X exist? 3. Do we have good reasons to think that X exists? All three questions can be asked about elements, and have been asked. Aristotle criticized the atomist account of chemical combination, according to which elements survive in their compounds. Eighteenth-century chemists rejected the Aristotelian view, although tacitly; they simply assumed that an element lives on in its compounds. Nineteenth-century chemists gradually adopted (an adapted form of) atomism, according to which an element can exist wherever its characteristic atoms do. The periodic table also allowed them to ask, of its empty spaces, whether they correspond to real but unknown elements. Priority disputes forced them to consider when there is sufficient evidence for the discovery of new elements. In the 1920s, IUPAC proposed a very thin definition of an element, according to which an element exists wherever its characteristic nuclear charge does. But according to some scientists, it is now challenged by the fleeting existence of some superheavy elements; if a nucleus cannot survive long enough to acquire a stable electronic structure, then it cannot be said to have any chemical properties. How then can it be called a chemical element? In this paper I explore this latest ontological question, in the light of a sufficiently nuanced understanding of earlier ones. I then relate this discussion to a more general question about existence: the Special Composition Question.
...MoreBook Eric R. Scerri; Elena Ghibaudi (2020) What Is A Chemical Element? A Collection of Essays by Chemists, Philosophers, Historians, and Educators.
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