AN ANALYSIS OF ONTOLOGICAL REDUCTION FROM STRUCTURAL MEREOLOGICAL NOTIONS

Abstract

The present paper is nothing more than another turn of the screw about ontological reduction. The main objective is to determine, by virtue of certain mereological notions, whether it is possible for there to be the ontological reduction of certain types of entities, in this case, entities related to the chemical sciences. The way to proceed will be, in the first instance, to suggest that if there is ontological reduction it is because three conditions are satisfied, which are: ontological dependence, fundamentality, and analysis. Subsequently, a series of ideas based on mereological intuitions will be presented with the intention of specifying that there are structural composite entities, such as molecules. Finally, it will be reviewed whether the conditions that ontological reduction would imply for the case of structural entities are satisfied.