The relationship between mathematical formalism, physical interpretation and epistemological appraisal in the practice of physical theorizing is considered in the context of Bohmian mechanics. After laying outthe formal mathematical postulates of thetheory and recovering the historical roots ofthe present debate over the meaning of Bohmianmechanics from the early debate over themeaning of Schrödinger's wave mechanics,several contemporary interpretations of Bohmianmechanics in the literature are discussed andcritiqued with respect to the aim of causalexplanation and an alternative interpretationis proposed. Throughout, the over-arching aimis (...) to exhibit the connections betweenmathematical, ontological and methodologicalquestions in physical theory and to reflect onthe rationality of physical theorizing in lightof the present case. (shrink)

Essay content differs substantially from presentation! In order to motivate his claim that the violation of the Bell inequalities forces us into a certain kind of holism, Howard develops a formal equivalence proof supposed to ground the stochastic “outcome independence” condition, the assumption of which is necessary for the derivation of the inequalities, in a physical principle, the separability principle. I will discuss several criticisms of Howard's equivalence proof that focus on the sufficiency of the separability principle for outcome independence. (...) I will argue that, while none of these criticisms succeeds, they do constrain the possible form of Howard's argument. (shrink)