Author pages are created from data sourced from our academic publisher partnerships and public sources.
- Publications
- Influence
What is water
- P. Needham
- Philosophy
- 2000
Putnam’s writings have established as philosophical orthodoxy the idea that substance kinds are identified by microscopic structure. The precise nature of the claim is difficult to pin down to a… Expand
The discovery that water is H2O
- P. Needham
- Philosophy
- 1 October 2002
What are the criteria determining the individuation of chemical kinds? Recent philosophical discussion, which puts too much emphasis on microstructure, seems to presuppose a reductionist conception… Expand
Resisting Chemical Atomism: Duhem’s Argument
- P. Needham
- Philosophy
- Philosophy of Science
- 1 December 2008
Late nineteenth‐century opponents of atomism questioned whether the evidence required any notion of an atom. In this spirit, Duhem developed an account of the import of chemical formulas that is… Expand
Nagel's analysis of reduction: Comments in defense as well as critique
- P. Needham
- Physics
- 1 May 2010
Despite all the criticism showered on Nagel's classic account of reduction, it meets a fundamental desideratum in an analysis of reduction that is difficult to question, namely of providing for a… Expand
Compounds and Mixtures
- P. Needham
- Chemistry
- 2012
Publisher Summary From a modern point of view, compounds are contrasted with elements of which they are composed, and the two categories combine to give the category of substances. Mixtures, on the… Expand
Duhem's physicalism
- P. Needham
- Philosophy
- 1 March 1998
Abstract Duhem is often described as an anti-realist or instrumentalist. A contrary view has recently been expressed by Martin (1991) ( Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and History in the Work of a Believing… Expand
Mixtures and Modality
- P. Needham
- Chemistry
- 2005
Some points are made aboutsubstance properties in their role ofintroducing mass terms. In particular, twoconditions of distributivity and cumulativityof mass predicates expressing these propertiesare… Expand