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# The Chemical Bond is a Real Pattern

## Details

**Authors** Seifert, Vanessa A.

**Year** 2022

**Publisher** Philosophy of Science

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Chemistry

**Secondary disciplines** Philosophy

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2022.17) 
10.1017/psa.2022.17

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To resolve the debate over what chemical bonds are and whether they exist.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Competing conceptions of the bond in valence bond theory, molecular orbital theory and related quantum-chemical methods, and Hendry's structural and energetic accounts.

### How they did it (methods)

Philosophical argument applying Dennett's account of real patterns, with efficiency of description measured by Wilson's degrees of freedom, and defended against instrumentalism using structural realist ideas of Ladyman and Ross.

### What they found (results)

The author argues that chemical bonds are real patterns of interactions between subatomic particles. Chemical and quantum-chemical descriptions reduce the variables needed relative to a full description of the particles, so bonds qualify as real. The account is said to accommodate all scientifically admissible bond classifications, to reflect the dynamic character of bonding, and to explain the use of approximations.

## Commentary

### In short

A philosophical argument that a chemical bond is a real, efficiently describable pattern of interactions among subatomic particles, which settles disagreement among rival definitions of the bond.

### Response

The argument treats a bond as a higher-level entity constituted by interactions among lower-level particles, which fits systems (parts and wholes at different levels of description) and relationships (the interactions that constitute the pattern). The reduction in degrees of freedom is the justification for treating the whole as real. Caveats: the paper is a philosophical argument, not an empirical study; distinctions arise in the contested definitions of the bond but are not the focus, and no perspective pattern is claimed. Only the abstract and publisher summary were available.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

Formal proof or model

**Added** 2026-10-26

**How to cite this** Seifert, Vanessa A. (2022). The Chemical Bond is a Real Pattern. Philosophy of Science.