Bogaard, Paul A.  “Whitehead and Modern Chemistry.” Process Thought and Modern Science Conference  (June 1974). 

Abstract

Modern chemistry's confrontation with the issue of "combination" illuminates certain presumptions concerning the relations between entities as constituents and entities as complex wholes. It also speaks to the methodological difference between explanations and mere descriptions and the role models play in both. Indeed, the thesis of this essay will be that these methodological problems can be resolved in part by considering the presuppositions in use. More specifically, it will be an attempt to show how Whitehead's schema provides categories which elucidate just these implications even if they fall short of establishing them. To this end we will review first the rise of modern chemical explanation in the nineteenth century, both its success and its failure, and the revisions brought forth in our own century; then turn to Whitehead's analysis to illustrate the reliance in chemical explanations upon comparative simplicity and complexity.