Philosophy and Logic of Quantum Physics
Abstract
The book investigates the ontology and logic of quantum physics. The first part discusses the relationship of theory and observation and different views on the ontological status of scientific theories. It introduces the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and some of its interpretations and their compatibility with various ontological positions. In the second part, implications of quantum mechanics on classical logic, especially on the distributive law and bivalence, as discussed by Garrett Birkhoff & John von Neumann (1936) and Hilary Putnam (1968), and their counterarguments are reconstructed and dcussed. It is concluded that classical logic is sufficient for dealing with quantum mechanical propositions. © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2016. All rights reserved.
The present work constitutes first of all a discussion of the so called “orthodox” interpretation of the wave function ψ of quantum mechanics and the so-called “unorthodox” related theories. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument, the theories of the hidden variables, and the inequalities of Bell’s type are considered. Moreover the paper contains an exposition of the author’s point of view concerning the validity of quantum mechanics. The meaning of probability (in the theory of knowledge) and of causality (within the ontological point of view) are discussed.
The main argument for scientific realism is that our present theories in science are so successful empirically that they can't have got that way by chance - instead they must somehow have latched onto the blueprint of the universe. The main argument against scientific realism is that there have been enormously successful theories which were once accepted but are now regarded as false. The central question addressed in this paper is whether there is some reasonable way to have the best of both worlds: to give the argument from scientific revolutions its full weight and yet still adopt some sort of realist attitude towards presently accepted theories in physics and elsewhere. I argue that there is such a way - through structural realism, a position adopted by Poincare, and here elaborated and defended.