The famous EPR article of 1935 challenged the completeness of quantum mechanics and spurred decades of theoretical and experimental research into the foundations of quantum theory. A crowning achievement of this research is the demonstration that nature cannot in general consist in noncontextual pre-measurement properties that uniquely determine possible measurement outcomes, through experimental violations of Bell inequalities and Kochen-Specker theorems. In this article, I reconstruct an argument from Niels Bohr’s writings that the reality of the Einstein-Planck-de Broglie relations alone implies (...) that no such properties can exist for momentum and position measurements, show how this argument responds to the challenge of EPR on general physical grounds, and advance that this reconstruction shows that and how Bohr’s “complementarity” is a view of the objective content and logic of quantum theory. (shrink)

I reinterpret Bohr's attitude towards quantum mechanical formalism and its empirical content, based on his understanding of the correspondence principle and its approximate applicability. I suggest that Bohr understood complementarity as a limitation imposed by the commutation relations upon the applicability of the idealizations which had grounded the use of the correspondence principle. By discussing this interpretation against the contemporary background of discussions regarding “naïve realism” about operators (as observables), I suggest that a Bohrian view on the empirical content of (...) quantum mechanical operators may provide a middle ground between complete contextualism and an untenable realism about quantum properties. (shrink)

No, but the paper argues that Bohr understood his correspondence principle, or at least an aspect of that principle expressed by the notion of rational generalization, as grounded in Hankel’s principle of permanence.

This book concerns the metasemantics of quantum mechanics (QM). Roughly, it pursues an investigation at an intersection of the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of language, and it offers a critical analysis of rival explanations of the semantic facts of standard QM. Two problems for such explanations are discussed: categoricity and permanence. New results include 1) a reconstruction of Einstein's incompleteness argument, which concludes that a local, separable, and categorical QM cannot exist, 2) a reinterpretation of Bohr's principle of (...) correspondence, grounded in the principle of permanence, 3) a meaning-variance argument for quantum logic, which follows a line of critical reflections initiated by Weyl, and 4) an argument for semantic indeterminacy leveled against inferentialism about QM, inspired by Carnap's work in the philosophy of classical logic. (shrink)

The last decade has seen an increasing number of references to quantum mechanics in the humanities and social sciences. This development has in particular been driven by Karen Barad’s agential realism: a theoretical framework that, based on Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, aims to inform social theorizing. In dealing with notions such as agency, power, and embodiment as well as the relation between the material and the discursive level, the influence of agential realism in fields such as feminist science (...) studies and posthumanism has been profound. However, no one has hitherto paused to assess agential realism’s proclaimed quantum mechanical origin including its relation to the writings of Niels Bohr. This is the task taken up here. We find that many of the implications that agential realism allegedly derives from a Bohrian interpretation of quantum mechanics dissent from Bohr’s own views and are in conflict with those of other interpretations of quantum mechanics. Agential realism is at best consistent with quantum mechanics and consequently, it does not capture what quantum mechanics in any strict sense implies for social science or any other domain of inquiry. Agential realism may be interesting and thought provoking from the perspective of social theorizing, but it is neither sanctioned by quantum mechanics nor by Bohr’s authority. This conclusion not only holds for agential realism in particular, it also serves as a general warning against the other attempts to use quantum mechanics in social theorizing. (shrink)

A short review of some recent developments in the philosophy of physics is presented. I focus on themes which illustrate relations and points of common interest between philosophy of physics and three of its `neighboring' elds: Physics, metaphysics and general philosophy of science. The main examples discussed in these three `border areas' are decoherence and the interpretation of quantum mechanics; time in physics and metaphysics; and methodological issues surrounding the multiverse idea in modern cosmology.

In this paper I present and critically discuss the main strategies that Bohr used and could have used to fend off the charge that his interpretation does not provide a clear-cut distinction between the classical and the quantum domain. In particular, in the first part of the paper I reassess the main arguments used by Bohr to advocate the indispensability of a classical framework to refer to quantum phenomena. In this respect, by using a distinction coming from an apparently unrelated (...) philosophical corner, we could say that Bohr is not a revisionist philosopher of physics but rather a descriptivist one in the sense of Strawson. I will then go on discussing the nature of the holistic link between classical measurement apparatuses and observed system that he also advocated. The oft-repeated conclusion that Bohr’s interpretation of the quantum formalism is untenable can only be established by giving his arguments as much force as possible, which is what I will try to do in the following by remaining as faithful as possible to his published work. (shrink)

Philosophical naturalism is ambiguous between conjoining philosophy with science or with nature understood scientifically. Reconciliation of this ambiguity is necessary but rarely attempted. Feminist science studies often endorse the former naturalism but criticize the second. Karen Barad's agential realism, however, constructively reconciles both senses. Barad then challenges traditional metaphysical naturalisms as not adequately accountable to science. She also contributes distinctively to feminist reinterpretations of objectivity as agential responsibility, and of agency as embodied, worldly, and intra-active.

It is well known that Niels Bohr insisted on the necessity of classical concepts in the account of quantum phenomena. But there is little consensus concerning his reasons, and what he exactly meant by this. In this paper, I re-examine Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, and argue that the necessity of the classical can be seen as part of his response to the measurement problem. More generally, I attempt to clarify Bohr’s view on the classical/quantum divide, arguing that the relation (...) between the two theories is that of mutual dependence. An important element in this clarification consists in distinguishing Bohr’s idea of the wave function as symbolic from both a purely epistemic and an ontological interpretation. Together with new evidence concerning Bohr’s conception of the wave function collapse, this sets his interpretation apart from both standard versions of the Copenhagen interpretation, and from some of the reconstructions of his view found in the literature. I conclude with a few remarks on how Bohr’s ideas make much sense also when modern developments in quantum gravity and early universe cosmology are taken into account. (shrink)

The framework of quantum frames can help unravel some of the interpretive difficulties i the foundation of quantum mechanics. In this paper, I begin by tracing the origins of this concept in Bohr's discussion of quantum theory and his theory of complementarity. Engaging with various interpreters and followers of Bohr, I argue that the correct account of quantum frames must be extended beyond literal space–time reference frames to frames defined by relations between a quantum system and the exosystem or external (...) physical frame, of which measurement contexts are a particularly important example. This approach provides superior solutions to key EPR-type measurement and locality paradoxes. (shrink)

The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of “quantum fundamentalism” according to which everything in the universe is fundamentally of a quantum nature and ultimately describable in quantum-mechanical terms. Bohr’s conception of quantum mechanics has traditionally been seen as opposed to such a view, not least because of his insistence on the necessity of the concepts of classical physics in the (...) account of quantum phenomena. Recently, however, a consensus seems to be emerging among careful commentators on Bohr to the effect that he, after all, did subscribe to some version of quantum fundamentalism. Against this consensus, and by re-examining the historical record, I will defend a variant of the traditional reading of Bohr in which the answer to what an object is depends on the experimental context; and in principle, any physical system can be treated quantum-mechanically but not all systems can be treated that way at the same time. (shrink)

PhD dissertation addressing what can be called conceptual-mathematical anomalies in quantum electrodynamics. This work can be seen as following the line of philosophy of physics studies of quantum field theory that started to emerge in a systematic way in the early eighties of last century. One example is Teller’s work on standard quantum electrodynamics.In this work, by following a historical approach, I will return to the standard version of quantum electrodynamics, which is the only one available when we want to (...) get numbers out to compare with experimental results. This work spins around two main vectors. One is the divergence of the S-matrix series expansion, the other is the spatio-temporal description of physical processes in the theory. (shrink)

Quantum electrodynamics presents intrinsic limitations in the description of physical processes that make it impossible to recover from it the type of description we have in classical electrodynamics. Hence one cannot consider classical electrodynamics as reducing to quantum electrodynamics and being recovered from it by some sort of limiting procedure. Quantum electrodynamics has to be seen not as a more fundamental theory, but as an upgrade of classical electrodynamics, which permits an extension of classical theory to the description of phenomena (...) that, while being related to the conceptual framework of the classical theory, cannot be addressed from the classical theory. (shrink)

We clarify the role of the Born rule in the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics by deriving it from Bohr's doctrine of classical concepts, translated into the following mathematical statement: a quantum system described by a noncommutative C*-algebra of observables is empirically accessible only through associated commutative C*-algebras. The Born probabilities emerge as the relative frequencies of outcomes in long runs of measurements on a quantum system; it is not necessary to adopt the frequency interpretation of single-case probabilities (which will (...) be the subject of a sequel paper). Our derivation of the Born rule uses ideas from a program begun by Finkelstein (1965) and Hartle (1968), intending to remove the Born rule as a separate postulate of quantum mechanics. Mathematically speaking, our approach refines previous elaborations of this program - notably the one due to Farhi, Goldstone, and Gutmann (1989) as completed by Van Wesep (2006) - in replacing infinite tensor products of Hilbert spaces by continuous fields of C*-algebras. In combination with our interpretational context, this technical improvement circumvents valid criticisms that earlier derivations of the Born rule have provoked, especially to the effect that such derivations were mathematically flawed as well as circular. Furthermore, instead of relying on the controversial eigenvector-eigenvalue link in quantum theory, our derivation just assumes that pure states in classical physics have the usual interpretation as truthmakers that assign sharp values to observables. (shrink)

What is commonly known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, regarded as representing a unitary Copenhagen point of view, differs significantly from Bohr's complementarity interpretation, which does not employ wave packet collapse in its account of measurement and does not accord the subjective observer any privileged role in measurement. It is argued that the Copenhagen interpretation is an invention of the mid‐1950s, for which Heisenberg is chiefly responsible, various other physicists and philosophers, including Bohm, Feyerabend, Hanson, and Popper, having (...) further promoted the invention in the service of their own philosophical agendas. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the notion of quantum entanglement from the perspective of the logos categorical approach [26, 27]. Firstly, we will argue that the widespread distinctions, on the one hand, between pure states and mixed states, and on the other, between separable states and entangled states, are completely superfluous when considering the orthodox mathematical formalism of QM. We will then argue that the introduction of these distinctions within the theory of quanta is due to another two completely unjustified (...) metaphysical presuppositions, namely, the idea that there is a “collapse” of quantum states when being measured and the idea that QM talks about “elementary particles”. At distance from these distinctions and taking the logos approach as a standpoint, we will propose an objective formal account of the notion of entanglement in terms of potential coding which introduces the necessary distinction between intensive relations and effective relations. We will also discuss how this new definition of entanglement provides an anschaulich content to this —supposedly “spooky”— quantum relational feature. (shrink)

For many years after Bohr's response to the EPR argument, Bohr was considered to have provided an authoritative rebuttal of the ideas of the paper, and more generally of Einstein's stance on quantum theory. More recently, however, there has been great difficulty even in achieving general agreement on Bohr's meaning. Two recent papers, by Dickson, and by Clifton and Halvorson, have sought to establish the structure of Bohr's argument. In the present paper, the papers of EPR and Bohr are re-assessed (...) in the light of these recent papers, and also in light of the development and presentation of quantum information theory. (shrink)

The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and conceptual, but mostly technical and mathematically rigorous, including over 500 references. For example, we sketch how certain intuitive ideas of the founders of quantum theory have fared in the light of current mathematical knowledge. One such idea that has certainly stood the test of time is (...) Heisenberg's `quantum-theoretical Umdeutung (reinterpretation) of classical observables', which lies at the basis of quantization theory. Similarly, Bohr's correspondence principle (in somewhat revised form) and Schroedinger's wave packets (or coherent states) continue to be of great importance in understanding classical behaviour from quantum mechanics. On the other hand, no consensus has been reached on the Copenhagen Interpretation, but in view of the parodies of it one typically finds in the literature we describe it in detail. On the assumption that quantum mechanics is universal and complete, we discuss three ways in which classical physics has so far been believed to emerge from quantum physics, namely in the limit h -> 0 of small Planck's constant (in a finite system), in the limit N goes to infinity of a large system with $N$ degrees of freedom (at fixed h), and through decoherence and consistent histories. The first limit is closely related to modern quantization theory and microlocal analysis, whereas the second involves methods of C*-algebras and the concepts of superselection sectors and macroscopic observables. In these limits, the classical world does not emerge as a sharply defined objective reality, but rather as an approximate appearance relative to certain ``classical" states and observables. Decoherence subsequently clarifies the role of such states, in that they are ``einselected", i.e. robust against coupling to the environment. Furthermore, the nature of classical observables is elucidated by the fact that they typically define (approximately) consistent sets of histories. This combination of ideas and techniques does not quite resolve the measurement problem, but it does make the point that classicality results from the elimination of certain states and observables from quantum theory. Thus the classical world is not created by observation (as Heisenberg once claimed), but rather by the lack of it. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of novel contributions and reviews by renowned researchers in the foundations of quantum physics, quantum optics, and neutron physics. It is published in honor of Michael Horne, whose exceptionally clear and groundbreaking work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and interferometry, both of photons and of neutrons, has provided penetrating insight into the implications of modern physics for our understanding of the physical world. He is perhaps best known for the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality. This collection (...) includes an oral history of Michael Horne's contributions to the foundations of physics and his connections to other eminent figures in the history of the subject, among them Clifford Shull and Abner Shimony. Among the editors and contributors are John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022. (shrink)

Einstein's philosophy of physics was predicated on his Trennungsprinzip, a combination of separability and locality, without which he believed objectification, and thereby "physical thought" and "physical laws", to be impossible. Bohr's philosophy, on the other hand, was grounded in a seemingly different doctrine about the possibility of objective knowledge, namely the necessity of classical concepts. In fact, it follows from Raggio's Theorem in algebraic quantum theory that - within an appropriate class of physical theories - suitable mathematical translations of the (...) doctrines of Bohr and Einstein are equivalent. Thus - upon our specific formalization - quantum mechanics accommodates Einstein's Trennungsprinzip if and only if it is interpreted a la Bohr through classical physics. Unfortunately, the protagonists themselves failed to discuss their differences in this constructive way, since their debate was dominated by Einstein's ingenious but ultimately flawed attempts to establish the "incompleteness" of quantum mechanics. This aspect of their debate may still be understood and appreciated, however, as reflecting a much deeper and insurmountable disagreement between Bohr and Einstein about the knowability of Nature. Using the theological controversy on the knowability of God as a analogy, we can say that Einstein was a Spinozist, whereas Bohr could be said to be on the side of Maimonides. Thus Einstein's off-the-cuff characterization of Bohr as a 'Talmudic philosopher' was spot-on. (shrink)

This paper investigates some of the philosophical and conceptual issues raised by the search for a quantum theory of gravity. It is critically discussed whether such a theory is necessary in the first place, and how much would be accomplished if it is eventually constructed. I argue that the motivations behind, and expectations to, a theory of quantum gravity are entangled with central themes in the philosophy of science, in particular unification, reductionism, and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. I further (...) argue that there are —contrary to claims made on behalf of string theory— no good reasons to think that a quantum theory of gravity, if constructed, will provide a theory of everything, that is, a fundamental theory from which all physics in principle can be derived. (shrink)

Einstein's philosophy of physics (as clarified by Fine, Howard, and Held) was predicated on his Trennungsprinzip, a combination of separability and locality, without which he believed objectification, and thereby "physical thought" and "physical laws", to be impossible. Bohr's philosophy (as elucidated by Hooker, Scheibe, Folse, Howard, Held, and others), on the other hand, was grounded in a seemingly different doctrine about the possibility of objective knowledge, namely the necessity of classical concepts. In fact, it follows from Raggio's Theorem in algebraic (...) quantum theory that - within an appropriate class of physical theories - suitable mathematical translations of the doctrines of Bohr and Einstein are equivalent. Thus - upon our specific formalization - quantum mechanics accommodates Einstein's Trennungsprinzip if and only if it is interpreted a la Bohr through classical physics. Unfortunately, the protagonists themselves failed to discuss their differences in this constructive way, since their debate was dominated by Einstein's ingenious but ultimately flawed attempts to establish the "incompleteness" of quantum mechanics. This aspect of their debate may still be understood and appreciated, however, as reflecting a much deeper and insurmountable disagreement between Bohr and Einstein about the knowability of Nature. Using the theological controversy on the knowability of God as a analogy, we can say that Einstein was a Spinozist, whereas Bohr could be said to be on the side of Maimonides. Thus Einstein's off-the-cuff characterization of Bohr as a 'Talmudic philosopher' was spot-on. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Heisenberg's mature philosophy of quantum mechanics must be understood in the context of his epistemological project to reinterpret and redefine Kant's notion of the a priori. After discussions with Weizsäcker and Hermann in Leipzig in the 1930s, Heisenberg attempted to ground his interpretation of quantum mechanics on what might be termed a 'practical' transformation of Kantian philosophy. Taking as his starting point, Bohr's doctrine of the indispensability of classical concepts, Heisenberg argued that concepts such (...) as space, time and causality can be regarded as 'practically a priori', in so far as they remain the conditions for the possibility of experience and even of 'objective reality', though they are not universal and necessary in a strictly Kantian sense. We cannot avoid using classical concepts in the description of experiments in quantum theory, despite the fact that there are limits to their applicability. Such concepts are, for Heisenberg, historically contingent, yet indispensable in our time, because we have no other language through which we can describe and conceive of the interaction between 'object' and 'measuring device'. (shrink)

It has often been remarked that Bohr's writings on the interpretation of quantum mechanics make scant reference to the mathematical formalism of quantum theory; and it has not infrequently been suggested that this is another symptom of the general vagueness, obscurity and perhaps even incoherence of Bohr's ideas. Recent years have seen a reappreciation of Bohr, however. In this article we broadly follow this "rehabilitation program". We offer what we think is a simple and coherent reading of Bohr's statements about (...) the interpretation of quantum mechanics, basing ourselves on primary sources and making use of and filling lacunas in|recent secondary literature. We argue that Bohr's views on quantum mechanics are more firmly connected to the structure of the quantum formalism than usually acknowledged, even though Bohr's explicit use of this formalism remains on a rather global and qualitative level. In our reading, Bohr's pronouncements on the meaning of quantum mechanics should first of all be seen as responses to concrete physical problems, rather than as expressions of a preconceived philosophical doctrine. In our final section we attempt a more detailed comparison with the formalism and conclude that Bohr's interpretation is not far removed from present-day non-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how scientists determine which type of hypothesis is most suitable for tackling a particular problem by examining the historical case of the anomalous β spectrum in early nuclear physics, a puzzle that occasioned the most diverse hypotheses amongst physicists at the time. It is shown that such determinations are most often implicitly informed by scientists' individual perspectives on the structural relations between the various elements of the theory and the problem at hand. In addition (...) to this main result, it is suggested that Wolfgang Pauli's neutrino idea may well have been an adaptation of Ernst Rutherford's original and older neutron idea, which would provide evidence that the adaptation of older ideas is a more common practice than is often thought. (shrink)

Descartes’ derivation of the primary qualities of matter and their role in explaining observed physical phenomena are briefly reviewed. The lesson drawn from Descartes’ methodology of explanation is that we ought to aim to reduce complex phenomena to simple unifying principles and conceptual primitives. Three proposed solutions to the apparent paradoxes in contemporary quantum physics (primarily associated with the notion of entanglement) are briefly compared with lessons taken from Descartes. It is argued that further research in this field should provide (...) criteria for selecting modifications to the standard (largely Cartesian) conceptual scheme, along the lines of either visualisable causality or the physical spatial separability of all material objects. (shrink)

Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics has been criticized as incoherent and opportunistic, and based on doubtful philosophical premises. If so Bohr’s influence, in the pre-war period of 1927–1939, is the harder to explain, and the acceptance of his approach to quantum mechanics over de Broglie’s had no reasonable foundation. But Bohr’s interpretation changed little from the time of its first appearance, and stood independent of any philosophical presuppositions. The principle of complementarity is itself best read as a conjecture of unusually (...) wide scope, on the nature and future course of explanations in the sciences (and not only the physical sciences). If it must be judged a failure today, it is not because of any internal inconsistency. (shrink)

This study posits that Bohr failed to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality against Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen’s paper. Although there are many papers in the literature that focus on Bohr’s argument in his reply to the EPR paper, the purpose of the current paper is not to clarify Bohr’s argument. Instead, I contend that regardless of which interpretation of Bohr’s argument is correct, his defense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality remained incomplete. For example, a (...) recent trend in studies of Bohr’s work is to suggest he considered the wave-function description to be epistemic. However, such an interpretation cannot be used to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new categorical approach which attempts to provide an original understanding of QM. Our logos categorical approach attempts to consider the main features of the quantum formalism as the standpoint to develop a conceptual representation that explains what the theory is really talking about —rather than as problems that need to be bypassed in order to allow a restoration of a classical “common sense” understanding of what there is. In particular, we discuss a solution to (...) Kochen-Specker contextuality through the generalization of the meaning of global valuation. This idea has been already addressed by the so called topos approach to QM —originally proposed by Isham, Butterfiled and D ̈oring— in terms of sieve-valued valuations. The logos approach to QM presents a different solution in terms of the notion of intensive valuation. This new solution stresses an ontological reading of the quantum formalism and the need to restore an objective conceptual representation and understanding of quantum physical reality. (shrink)

Standard quantum mechanics undeniably violates the notion of separability that classical physics accustomed us to consider as valid. By relating the phenomenon of quantum nonseparability to the all-important concept of potentiality, we effectively provide a coherent picture of the puzzling entangled correlations among spatially separated systems. We further argue that the generalized phenomenon of quantum nonseparability implies contextuality for the production of well-defined events in the quantum domain, whereas contextuality entails in turn a structural-relational conception of quantal objects, viewed as (...) carriers of dispositional properties. It is finally suggested that contextuality, if considered as a conditionalization preparation procedure of the object to be measured, naturally leads to a separable concept of reality whose elements are experienced as distinct, well-localized objects having determinate properties. In this connection, we find it necessary to distinguish the meaning of the term reality from the criterion of reality for us. The implications of the latter considerations for the notion of objectivity in quantum mechanics are also discussed. (shrink)

Although Bohr's reply to the EPR argument is supposed to be a watershed moment in the development of his philosophy of quantum theory, it is difficult to find a clear statement of the reply's philosophical point. Moreover, some have claimed that the point is simply that Bohr is a radical positivist. In this paper, we show that such claims are unfounded. In particular, we give a mathematically rigorous reconstruction of Bohr's reply to the _original_ EPR argument that clarifies its logical (...) structure, and which shows that it does not rest on questionable philosophical assumptions. Rather, Bohr's reply is dictated by his commitment to provide "classical" and "objective" descriptions of experimental phenomena. (shrink)