Olimpia Lombardi

This article focuses on the relationship between microevolution and macroevolution. The main purpose is to argue that up to the present time in the consolidation of the evolutionary synthesis macroevolution has been always conceived as dependent on microevolution. Such dependence was very clear in the synthesis, but seems to have been left aside by later authors. Nevertheless, we show that the criticisms of the synthesis since the decade of the 1970s did not modify that general trend: the new perspectives reproduced the dependence of macroevolution on microevolution by means of strategies different than those appealed to by the traditional synthesis.

Esta carta abierta es el resultado del intenso intercambio epistolar que he mantenido con el Prof. Torretti durante muchos años, y a través del cual me he enriquecido ampliamente en el pensar filosófico. Aquí señalo nuestros acuerdos en la adopción de una perspectiva de inspiración kantiana, y en el reconocimiento del papel que juega la dimensión pragmática en la ciencia. No obstante, nos distanciamos en cuanto al peso que le adjudicamos al realismo en nuestras posturas. Estas discusiones con el Prof. Torretti me permitieron explicitar mi modo de vivir la filosofía como praxis filosófica, dirigida a enfrentarme con ciertos aspectos del modo en que actualmente se hace ciencia.

This open letter is the result of the intense epistolary exchange I had with Prof. Torretti for many years, which has highly enriched my philosophical thought. Here I point out our agreement in adopting a Kantian perspective, and in the acknowledgement of the role played by the pragmatic dimension in science. However, we drift apart regarding the weight assigned to realism in our positions. These discussions with Prof. Torretti led me to make explicit the way in which I live philosophy: as a philosophical praxis directed to struggle against certain aspects of contemporary science.

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the problem of the relationship between chemistry and physics, by focusing on the widely discussed case of the atomic orbitals. We will begin by remembering the difference between the physical and the chemical interpretation of the concept of orbital. Then, we will refer to the claim made in 1999 that atomic orbitals have been directly imaged for the first time. On this basis, we will analyze the problem from a new approach, by comparing the concept of orbital used in physics with the concept of orbital used in chemistry. Such an analysis will allow us to argue for an ontological pluralism that admits the coexistence of different ontologies without priorities or metaphysical privileges. From this philosophical framework, the concepts of chemical orbital and physical orbital correspond to two different ontologies. As a consequence, chemical orbitals are real entities belonging to the ontology of molecular chemistry, and can be observed like any other entity not belonging to the quantum mechanical ontology.

After the preeminence of logical positivism/empiricism during the most part of twentieth century, during the last decades many authors began to recognize the relevance of the Kantian thought for present-day philosophy of science. This chapter follows this general trend, adopting a realist reading of Kantian teachings. On this basis, I will delineate a Kantian-rooted realism according to which the worlds of science are always the result of a synthesis between the conceptual schemes embodied in scientific theories and practices and the independent noumenal reality. However, my position takes distance from the Kantian doctrine by admitting the possibility of different conceptual schemes, both diachronically and synchronically. This view not only leaves room for abrupt and discontinuous changes in the history of science, but also leads to an ontological pluralism that allows for the coexistence of irreducible and different, even incompatible ontological domains at the same historical time. I will focus particularly on the synchronic case to reject both ontological reductionism and emergentism from a perspective that denies any priority or dependence between domains, in resonance with a non-hierarchical articulation between scientific theories and disciplines.

El objetivo del presente artículo es proponer una nueva interpretación del concepto de información en contextos comunicacionales: una interpretación físicocausal. Apelando a las teorías manipulabilistas de la causación, principalmente en su versión intervencionista, buscaremos mostrar que la información comunicacional es una propiedad física que podemos manipular para generar situaciones comunicacionales. Este enfoque nos permite entender la naturaleza de la comunicación como estructura causal, puesta de manifiesto mediante criterios manipulabilistas. Confiamos en que el enfoque propuesto logra superar ciertas dificultades de las interpretaciones de la información actualmente vigentes en la literatura.

The core of the environment-induced decoherence program relies on the interaction between the system and its environment; this interaction leads interference to vanish with respect to a definite “preferred basis”. On the other hand, modal interpretations of quantum mechanics supply criteria to select the “preferred context”, where observables acquire definite values. The purpose of this paper is to show the compatibility between the modal interpretative framework and the results of the decoherence program, a compatibility that comes to the light when the Hamiltonian is conceived as the main character of the quantum play