Quantum Mechanics Between Ontology and Epistemology

Cham: Springer (European Studies in Philosophy of Science) (2018)
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Abstract

This book explores the prospects of rivaling ontological and epistemic interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM). It concludes with a suggestion for how to interpret QM from an epistemological point of view and with a Kantian touch. It thus refines, extends, and combines existing approaches in a similar direction. The author first looks at current, hotly debated ontological interpretations. These include hidden variables-approaches, Bohmian mechanics, collapse interpretations, and the many worlds interpretation. He demonstrates why none of these ontological interpretations can claim to be the clear winner amongst its rivals. Next, coverage explores the possibility of interpreting QM in terms of knowledge but without the assumption of hidden variables. It examines QBism as well as Healey’s pragmatist view. The author finds both interpretations or programs wanting in certain respects. As a result, he then goes on to advance a genuine proposal as to how to interpret QM from the perspective of an internal realism in the sense of Putnam and Kant. The book also includes two philosophical interludes. One details the notions of probability and realism. The other highlights the connections between the notions of locality, causality, and reality in the context of violations of Bell-type inequalities.

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Chapters

Reconsidering Knowledge, or, Coming to Terms With Quantum Mechanics

In conclusion of the previous chapter, we argued that the strong involvement of probabilities in the formalism of QM and the fact that one is not bound to introducing hidden variables λ justifies to reconsider knowledge. We also briefly mentioned that there are further reasons in QIT to consider qua... see more

ψ-Ontology, or, Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics

In Chap. 10.1007/978-3-319-95765-4_2, we located the importance of de Broglie’s research for the development of QM in his speculating about matter waves, and hence in his indirect contribution to Schrödinger’s discovery of the SE. But de Broglie’s contributions to the early development of QM of cour... see more

Philosophical Interlude II: Locality, Causality, Reality

How do the issues of ‘realism’, ‘locality’ and ‘causality’ raised in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-319-95765-4_4 connect? While we have already said something about the first two issues, it seems that we should now ask what we really mean when we talk of ‘causation’, as in the case of the common cause princip... see more

Just a Matter of Knowledge?

There is, it seems, a rather natural response to the conceptual problems raised by QM. This response, put frankly, is to say that ‘it’s all just epistemic!’ More precisely this would mean to deprive the quantum state of its ontological significance and to construe the theory not as a description of ... see more

Philosophical Interlude I: ‘Probability’ and ‘Realism’

So far we have talked about probabilities for finding a certain value for a certain observable, or for a system to collapse into some definite state, without specifying at all what we mean by ‘probability’.

Some Quantum Mechanics, Its Problems, and How Not to Think About Them

QM is notoriously associated with a certain ‘strangeness’ or ‘weirdness’ which stems, in the first place, from the divergence of the phenomena that it describes and predicts from our pre-quantum expectations. By ‘phenomenon’ we here mean, for practical reasons, something along the lines of Bogen and... see more

Introduction

Why should one philosophize about quantum mechanics ? What does it mean to interpret it? The present chapter exposes, on a preliminary level, the fundamental problems with interpreting QM and introduces some relevant notions from the philosophy of science.

Philosophical Interlude II: Locality, Causality, Reality (Again)

How do the issues of ‘realism’, ‘locality’ and ‘causality’ raised in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-319-95765-4_4 connect? While we have already said something about the first two issues, it seems that we should now ask what we really mean when we talk of ‘causation’, as in the case of the common cause princip... see more

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Author's Profile

Florian J. Boge
Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Citations of this work

QBism and the limits of scientific realism.David Glick - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (2):1-19.
Is the Reality Criterion Analytic?Florian J. Boge & David Glick - 2021 - Erkenntnis 86 (6):1445-1451.
QBism Is Not So Simply Dismissed.Ali Barzegar - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (7):693-707.

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