Properties and dispositions: Some metaphysical remarks on quantum ontology

American Institute of Physics (1):139-157 (2006)
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Abstract

After some suggestions about how to clarify the confused metaphysical distinctions between dispositional and non-dispositional or categorical properties, I review some of the main interpretations of QM in order to show that – with the relevant exception of Bohm’s minimalist interpretation – quantum ontology is irreducibly dispositional. Such an irreducible character of dispositions must be explained differently in different interpretations, but the reducibility of the contextual properties in the case of Bohmian mechanics is guaranteed by the fact that the positions of particles play the role of the categorical basis, a role that in other interpretations cannot be filled by anything else. In Bohr’s and Everett-type interpretations, dispositionalism is instrumentalism in disguise.

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Mauro Dorato
Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Citations of this work

The modal nature of structures in ontic structural realism.Michael Esfeld - 2009 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23 (2):179 – 194.
GRW as an ontology of dispositions.Mauro Dorato & Michael Esfeld - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (1):41-49.
Relational quantum mechanics.Federico Laudisa - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
GRW as an ontology of dispositions.Mauro Dorato & Michael Esfeld - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (1):41-49.

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References found in this work

Remarks on the Mind-Body Question.E. Wigner - 2003 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford University Press.
Relational quantum mechanics.Federico Laudisa - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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