The violation of Bell’s inequality has shown that quantum theory and relativity are in tension: reality is nonlocal. Nonetheless, many have argued that GRW-type theories are to be preferred to pilot-wave theories as they are more compatible with relativity: while relativistic pilot-wave theories require a preferred slicing of space-time, foliation-free relativistic GRW-type theories have been proposed. In this paper I discuss various meanings of ‘relativistic invariance,’ and I show how GRW-type theories, while being more relativistic in one sense, are less (...) relativistic in another. If so, the initial claim that GRW-type theories have a greater compatibility with relativity is unwarranted: both type of theories violate relativity, one way or another. (shrink)

Spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics turn the usual Schrödinger equation into a stochastic dynamical law. In particular, in this paper, I will focus on the GRW theory. Two philosophical issues that can be raised about GRW concern (i) the ontology of the theory, in particular the nature of the wave function and its role within the theory, and (ii) the interpretation of the objective probabilities involved in the dynamics of the theory. During the last years, it has been claimed (...) that we can take advantage of dispositional properties in order to develop an ontology for GRW theory, and also in order to ground the objective probabilities which are postulated by it. However, in this paper, I will argue that the dispositional interpretations which have been discussed in the literature so far are either flawed or – at best – incomplete. If we want to endorse a dispositional interpretation of GRW theory we thus need an extended account that specifies the precise nature of those properties and which makes also clear how they can correctly ground all the probabilities postulated by the theory. Thus, after having introduced several different kinds of probabilistic dispositions, I will try to fill the gap in the literature by proposing a novel and complete dispositional account of GRW, based on what I call spontaneous weighted multi-track propensities. I claim that such an account can satisfy both of our desiderata. (shrink)

Nous analysons la réponse qu’a donnée Otto Hölder à la célèbre critique de la preuve archimédienne de la loi du levier par Ernst Mach et nous la situons dans sa pensée epistémologique. Pour Hölder, la preuve de la loi du levier fournit une étude de cas sur la déduction en mécanique. Considérant la preuve comme un processus constructif et synthétique montant d’un niveau conceptuel à un niveau supérieur, Hölder parvient à défendre la preuve d’Archimède contre la critique de Mach, pour (...) qui au contraire une preuve n’amène qu’à une vérité analytique. (shrink)

The development of rigorous foundations of differential calculus in the course of the nineteenth century led to concerns among physicists about its applicability in physics. Through this development, differential calculus was made independent of empirical and intuitive notions of continuity, and based instead on strictly mathematical conditions of continuity. However, for Boltzmann and Poincaré, the applicability of mathematics in physics depended on whether there is a basis in physics, intuition or experience for the fundamental axioms of mathematics—and this meant that (...) to determine the status of differential equations in physics, they had to consider whether there was a justification for these mathematical continuity conditions in physics. For this reason, their ideas about continuity and discreteness in nature were entangled with epistemology and philosophy of mathematics. They reached opposite conclusions: Poincaré argued that physicists must work with a continuous representation of nature, and thus with differential equations, while Boltzmann argued that physicists must ultimately take nature to be discrete. (shrink)