Supramolecular and nanochemistry: philosophical-methodological analysis

Abstract

Traditional chemistry has been and is primarily concerned with the planning and implementation of synthesis of compounds at the macroscopic level of viewing the object. The subject of chemistry and related areas has expanded significantly from the onset and development of supramolecular chemistry and nanochemistry. Nanoscience is a purposeful cognitive activity that develops system knowledge about dimensional phenomena associated with material formations from units to hundreds of nanometers: their structure, methods of studying and controlling, methods of obtaining and practical application. Supramolecular chemistry is the chemistry of multimolecular, or polymolecular, stable formations created on the basis of multicenter non-covalent interactions. The peculiarity of nanoscience, in particular nanochemistry, is the creation of methods for studying, controlling and/or manipulating matter up to single atoms and molecules. Supramolecular chemistry and nanochemistry are the result of the discovery of a new field of chemistry and related sciences in the processes of interrelations of scientific and technological knowledge. The situation at the turn of XX–XXI centuries, the characteristic feature of which is the dimensional effect of the nanoscale, similar to the situation of the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, when quantum mechanics was born, whose characteristic feature are, similarly, the dimensional effects. Supramolecular chemistry and nanochemistry expand the knowledge about the limits of knowledge of the world and the diversity of physical structures. The above-named trajectories of science and technology development have opened new horizons for a variety of trends for development in historical and scientific, philosophical and methodological research in the areas of convergence of sciences, technologies and multifactorial Nano-Bio-Information-Cognitiv-Sociohumanistic (NBICS) processes in general. As a result, in our time, there has been a deepening of the scientific and/or philosophical problem of the “strength of the weak”, as well as the expansion of knowledge about selective actions and recognition in the interaction of systems of different nature and different levels of organization. All this is formally formulated and reinterpreted for systems of inorganic, organic and social worlds, which leads to a new formulation of the question of the finiteness and infinity of the world's material diversity in the context of new data of modern natural science.