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  1. Quantum Mechanics and Metaphysical Indeterminacy.George Darby - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2):227-245.
    There has been recent interest in formulating theories of non-representational indeterminacy. The aim of this paper is to clarify the relevance of quantum mechanics to this project. Quantum-mechanical examples of vague objects have been offered by various authors, displaying indeterminate identity, in the face of the famous Evans argument that such an idea is incoherent. It has also been suggested that the quantum-mechanical treatment of state-dependent properties exhibits metaphysical indeterminacy. In both cases it is important to consider the details of (...)
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  • Causality.Jessica M. Wilson - 2005 - In Sahotra Sarkar & Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. pp. 90--100.
    Arguably no concept is more fundamental to science than that of causality, for investigations into cases of existence, persistence, and change in the natural world are largely investigations into the causes of these phenomena. Yet the metaphysics and epistemology of causality remain unclear. For example, the ontological categories of the causal relata have been taken to be objects (Hume 1739), events (Davidson 1967), properties (Armstrong 1978), processes (Salmon 1984), variables (Hitchcock 1993), and facts (Mellor 1995). (For convenience, causes and effects (...)
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  • Dispositions, relational properties and the quantum world.Mauro Dorato - 2017 - In Maximilien Kistler (ed.), Dispositions and Causal Powers, Routledge, 2017,. London: Routledge. pp. pp.249-270..
    In this paper I examine the role of dispositional properties in the most frequently discussed interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. After offering some motivation for this project, I briefly characterize the distinction between non-dispositional and dispositional properties in the context of quantum mechanics by suggesting a necessary condition for dispositionality – namely contextuality – and, consequently, a sufficient condition for non-dispositionality, namely non-contextuality. Having made sure that the distinction is conceptually sound, I then analyze the plausibility of the widespread, monistic (...)
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  • Time, quantum mechanics, and decoherence.Simon Saunders - 1995 - Synthese 102 (2):235 - 266.
    State-reduction and the notion of actuality are compared to passage through time and the notion of the present; already in classical relativity the latter give rise to difficulties. The solution proposed here is to treat both tense and value-definiteness as relational properties or facts as relations; likewise the notions of change and probability. In both cases essential characteristics are absent: temporal relations are tenselessly true; probabilistic relations are deterministically true. The basic ideas go back to Everett, although the technical development (...)
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  • Revisiting the Einstein—Bohr Dialogue.Don Howard - 2007 - Iyyun 56:57–90.
    as the chief novelty in the quantum description of nature, Einstein for having found vindication in 3 relativity theory for either positivism or realism, depending upon whom one asks. Famous as is each in his own domain, they are famous also, together, for their decades-long disagreement over the future of fundamental physics, their respective embrace and rejection of quantum indeterminacy being only the most widely-known point of contention.
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  • Interdisciplinary Approach to Combine Science and Art: Understanding of the Paintings of René Magritte from the Viewpoint of Quantum Mechanics.Hunkoog Jho - 2019 - Foundations of Science 24 (3):527-540.
    In the twentieth century, science and art had a grand paradigmatic shift each other. This study aims at comparing the epistemologies of surrealism and quantum mechanics that emerged in the 1930s and interpreting the paintings from a physical viewpoint, with a focus on the Copenhagen interpretation. In terms of epistemologies, the arbitrary relationship between an object and an image advocated by Magritte may correspond to the indeterminacy between physical entities and measurement. This study analysed the paintings of Magritte from the (...)
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  • Causation, Realism, Determinism, and Probability in the Science and Philosophy of Max Born.Thomas Bunce - unknown
    In this thesis I will examine the philosophy of the physicist Max Born. As well as his scientific work, Born wrote on a number of philosophical topics: causation, realism, determinism, and probability. They appear as an interest throughout his career, but he particularly concentrates on them from the 1940s onwards. Born is a significant figure in the development of quantum mechanics whose philosophical work has been left largely unexamined. It is the aim of this thesis to elucidate and to critically (...)
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  • Mereological nihilism: quantum atomism and the impossibility of material constitution.Jeffrey Grupp - 2006 - Axiomathes 16 (3):245-386.
    Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical (...)
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  • Van Frasssen, Everett, and the critique of the copenhagem view of measurement.Stefano Osnaghi - 2008 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 12 (2):155-176.
    Bas van Fraassen advocates a “Copenhagen variant” of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics. However, he believes that the Copenhagen approach to measurement is not fully satisfactory, since it seems to rule out the possibility of providing a physical account of the observation process. This was also what John Wheeler had in mind when, in the mid-1950’s, he sponsored the “relative state” formulation proposed by his student Hugh Everett. Wheeler, who considered himself an orthodox Bohrian, tried to convince Bohr to (...)
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  • Bohr as a Phenomenological Realist.Towfic Shomar - 2008 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 39 (2):321-349.
    There is confusion among scholars of Bohr as to whether he should be categorized as an instrumentalist (see Faye 1991) or a realist (see Folse 1985). I argue that Bohr is a realist, and that the confusion is due to the fact that he holds a very special view of realism, which did not coincide with the philosophers’ views. His approach was sometimes labelled instrumentalist and other times realist, because he was an instrumentalist on the theoretical level, but a realist (...)
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  • Generalization of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger algebraic proof of nonlocality.Robert K. Clifton, Michael L. G. Redhead & Jeremy N. Butterfield - 1991 - Foundations of Physics 21 (2):149-184.
    We further develop a recent new proof (by Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger—GHZ) that local deterministic hidden-variable theories are inconsistent with certain strict correlations predicted by quantum mechanics. First, we generalize GHZ's proof so that it applies to factorable stochastic theories, theories in which apparatus hidden variables are causally relevant to measurement results, and theories in which the hidden variables evolve indeterministically prior to the particle-apparatus interactions. Then we adopt a more general measure-theoretic approach which requires that GHZ's argument be modified (...)
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  • What makes a classical concept classical? Toward a reconstruction of Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics.Don Howard - 1994 - In Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 201--230.
    — Niels Bohr, 19231 “There must be quite definite and clear grounds, why you repeatedly declare that one must interpret observations classically, which lie absolute ly in thei r essenc e. . . . It must belong to your deepest conviction—and I cannot understand on what you base it.”.
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  • Between classical and quantum.Nicolaas P. Landsman - 2007 - Handbook of the Philosophy of Science 2:417--553.
    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 (...)
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  • Should philosophers take lessons from quantum theory?Christopher Norris - 1999 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 42 (3 & 4):311 – 342.
    This essay examines some of the arguments in David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality , chief among them its case for the so-called many-universe interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM), presented as the only physically and logically consistent solution to the QM paradoxes of wave/particle dualism, remote simultaneous interaction, the observer-induced 'collapse of the wave-packet', etc. The hypothesis assumes that all possible outcomes are realized in every such momentary 'collapse', since the observer splits off into so many parallel, coexisting, but (...)
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  • Bohr’s Relational Holism and the classical-quantum Interaction.Mauro Dorato - 2016
    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 (...)
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  • Projection, physical intelligibility, objectivity and completeness: The divergent ideals of Bohr and Einstein.C. A. Hooker - 1991 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (4):491-511.
    It is shown how the development of physics has involved making explicit what were homocentric projections which had heretofore been implicit, indeed inexpressible in theory. This is shown to support a particular notion of the invariant as the real. On this basis the divergence in ideals of physical intelligibility between Bohr and Einstein is set out. This in turn leads to divergent, but explicit, conceptions of objectivity and completeness for physical theory. *I am indebted to Dr. G. McLelland. Professor F. (...)
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  • The quantum-like approach to modeling classical rationality violations: an introduction.Franco Vaio - 2019 - Mind and Society 18 (1):105-123.
    Psychological empirical research has shown that human choice behavior often violates the assumptions of classical rational choice models. In the last few decades a new research field has emerged which aims to account for the observed choice behavior by resorting to the concepts and mathematical techniques developed in the realm of quantum physics, such as the “mental state vector” defined in a Hilbert space and the interference of quantum probability. This article is a short introduction to the quantum-like approach to (...)
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  • The two-prism experiment and wave-particle duality of light.Partha Ghose & Dipankar Home - 1996 - Foundations of Physics 26 (7):943-953.
    A number of papers on wave-particle duality has appeared since the two-prism experiment was performed by Mizobuchi and Ohtake, based on a suggestion by Ghose, Home, and Agarwal. Against this backdrop, the present paper provides further clarification of the key issues involved in the analysis of the two-prism experiment. In the process, we present an overview of wave-particle duality vis-a vis Bohr's complementarity principle.
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  • Weak Quantum Theory: Complementarity and Entanglement in Physics and Beyond. [REVIEW]Harald Atmanspacher - 2002 - Foundations of Physics 32 (3):379-406.
    The concepts of complementarity and entanglement are considered with respect to their significance in and beyond physics. A formally generalized, weak version of quantum theory, more general than ordinary quantum theory of physical systems, is outlined and tentatively applied to two examples.
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  • Complementarity Revisited.Towfic Shomar - 2020 - Foundations of Science 25 (2):401-424.
    Complementarity can be considered as the weirdest idea associated with quantum mechanics. For Bohr, Complementarity is important in order to be able to convey successfully the non-classical features of quantum mechanics. This paper discusses the epistemic and ontological implications of different new experiments that attempt to detect complementarity. Complementarity has surely survived the attempts to overcome it, yet some of these experiments have led to a more general form of complementarity. Others claim to be able to differentiate among the different (...)
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  • Feminist Philosophy of Science.Lynn Hankinson Nelson - 2002 - In Peter K. Machamer & Michael Silberstein (eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of science. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 312–331.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.
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  • Niels Bohr as philosopher of experiment: Does decoherence theory challenge Bohr׳s doctrine of classical concepts?Kristian Camilleri & Maximilian Schlosshauer - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 49:73-83.
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  • Using conceptual spaces to exhibit conceptual continuity through scientific theory change.George Masterton, Frank Zenker & Peter Gärdenfors - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (1):127-150.
    There is a great deal of justified concern about continuity through scientific theory change. Our thesis is that, particularly in physics, such continuity can be appropriately captured at the level of conceptual frameworks using conceptual space models. Indeed, we contend that the conceptual spaces of three of our most important physical theories—Classical Mechanics, Special Relativity Theory, and Quantum Mechanics —have already been so modelled as phase-spaces. Working with their phase-space formulations, one can trace the conceptual changes and continuities in transitioning (...)
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  • Niels Bohr on the wave function and the classical/quantum divide.Henrik Zinkernagel - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 53:9-19.
    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 (...)
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  • Do Dispositions and Propensities have a role in the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics? Some Critical Remarks.Mauro Dorato - unknown - Synthese Library.
    In order to tackle the question posed by the title – notoriously answered in the positive, among others, by Heisenberg, Margenau, Popper and Redhead – I first discuss some attempts at distinguishing dispositional from non-dispositional properties, and then relate the distinction to the formalism of quantum mechanics. Since any answer to the question titling the paper must be interpretation-dependent, I review some of the main interpretations of quantum mechanics in order to argue that the ontology of theories regarding “wave collapse” (...)
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  • Pragmatism, Bohr, and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.Reza Maleeh & Parisa Amani - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (4):353-367.
    In this article, we argue that although Bohr's version of the Copenhagen interpretation is in line with several key elements of logical positivism, pragmatism is the closest approximation to a classification of the Copenhagen interpretation, whether or not pragmatists directly influenced the key figures of the interpretation. Pragmatism already encompasses important elements of operationalism and logical positivism, especially the liberalized Carnapian reading of logical positivism. We suggest that some elements of the Copenhagen interpretation, which are in line with logical positivism, (...)
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  • El concepto kantiano de analogía y el desarrollo histórico del pensamiento de Bohr.Hernán Pringe - 2014 - Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia 40 (1):29-45.
    El principio de correspondencia y el punto de vista de la complementariedad constituyen los sucesivos ejes alrededor de los cuales gira la interpretación de Bohr de la teoría cuántica. En este trabajo sostenemos que el concepto kantiano de analogía resulta un hilo conductor que permite comprender satisfactoriamente tal desarrollo histórico del pensamiento de Bohr. Mostraremos que el principio de correspondencia guía la búsqueda de analogías en la experiencia, mientras que desde el punto de vista de la complementariedad Bohr establece analogías (...)
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  • (1 other version)When champions meet: Rethinking the Bohr–Einstein debate.Nicolaas P. Landsman - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37 (1):212-242.
    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 (...)
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  • A Theater-Based Device for Training Teachers on the Nature of Science.Énery Melo & Manuel Bächtold - 2018 - Science & Education 27 (9-10):963-986.
    This article presents and discusses an innovative pedagogical device designed for training pre-service teachers on the nature of science. We endorse an approach according to which aspects of the nature of science should be explicitly discussed in order to be understood by learners. We identified quantum physics, and more precisely the principles of uncertainty and complementarity, as a rich topic suitable for such a discussion. Our training device consists in preparing and staging a new type of theater, the “scientific experimental (...)
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  • Einstein and Bohr's Rhetoric of Complementarity.Mara Beller - 1993 - Science in Context 6 (1):241-255.
    The ArgumentThe aim of this paper is to provide a critical perspective for Einstein's opposition to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, by analyzing the ingenious rhetoric of Bohr's principle of complementarity. I argue that what Bohr presents as arguments of “inevitability” are in fact merely arguments for the consistency of the quantum-mechanical scheme. Einstein's resistance to being persuaded by this potent technique of argumentation, and his rejection of Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics, appear consequently as an eminently reasonable position (...)
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  • (1 other version)Epistemic Objects as Interactive Loci.Alex Levine - 2011 - Axiomathes 21 (1):57-66.
    Contemporary process metaphysics has achieved a number of important results, most significantly in accounting for emergence, a problem on which substance metaphysics has foundered since Plato. It also faces trenchant problems of its own, among them the related problems of boundaries and individuation. Historically, the quest for ontology may thus have been largely responsible for the persistence of substance metaphysics. But as Plato was well aware, an ontology of substantial things raises serious, perhaps insurmountable problems for any account of our (...)
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  • Bohr’s Philosophy in the Light of Peircean Pragmatism.Reza Maleeh - 2015 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 46 (1):3-21.
    Adopting Murdoch’s pragmatist reading of Bohr’s theory of meaning with regard to Bohr’s notion of complementarity, in this paper I try to see Bohr’s post-Como and, in particular, post-EPR philosophy of quantum mechanics in the light of Peircean pragmatism with the hope that such a construal can shed more light to Bohr’s philosophy. I supplement Murdoch’s position on Bohr’s pragmatism by showing that in addition to his complementarity, Bohr’s correspondence principle, instrumentalism and realism can be read on the basis of (...)
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  • The inaccuracy principle.Hans Martens & Willem M. de Muynck - 1990 - Foundations of Physics 20 (4):357-380.
    The problem of joint measurement of incompatible observables is investigated. Measurements are represented by positive operator-valued measures. A quantitative notion of inaccuracy is defined. It is shown that within this framework joint inaccurate measurements are possible for arbitrary maximal projection-valued measures on finite-dimensional spaces. The accuracy of such measurements is limited, as is shown by an inaccuracy inequality we derive. This new type of uncertainty relation can be unambiguously interpreted as referring to measurement precision rather than preparative quality. Several recent (...)
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  • Realism and quantum mechanics.Peter Hodgson - 1997 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 11 (1):53 – 65.
    Scientific realism is discussed in a variety of quantum mechanical settings, and defended against rival views on a number of scores. The search for the hidden is the source of much scientific creativity.
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  • Conceptual problems in quantum electrodynamics: a contemporary historical-philosophical approach.Mario Bacelar Valente - unknown
    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 (...)
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  • Colloquium 1: Aristotle’s Metaphysics as the Ontology of Being-Alive and its Relevance Today.Alfred Miller - 2005 - Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 20 (1):1-107.
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  • Irreducible and complementary semiotic forms.Howard H. Pattee - 2001 - Semiotica 2001 (134).
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  • Complementarity and Scientific Rationality.Simon Saunders - 2004 - Foundations of Physics 35 (3):417-447.
    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 (...)
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  • (3 other versions)Möglichkeit, Wirklichkeit und Quantenmechanik.Boris Koznjak - 2007 - Prolegomena 6 (2):223-252.
    In this paper a possible interpretative value of Aristotle’s fundamental ontological doctrine of potentiality and actuality is considered in the context of operationally undoubtedly the most successful but interpretatively still controversial theory of modern physics – quantum mechanics – especially regarding understanding the nature of the world, the phenomena of which it describes and predicts so successfully. In particular, beings of the atomic world are interpreted as real potential beings actualized by the measurement process in appropriate experimental arrangement, and the (...)
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  • The correspondence principle and the closure of theories.Friedel Weinert - 1994 - Erkenntnis 40 (3):303 - 323.
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