Quantum Physics and Process Metaphysics

Peter J. Lewis

Michaël Esfeld

Michael Epperson

Richard Campbell

Metaphysical models by which we understand the fundamental make-up of our universe are all the more plausible when informed by empirically confirmed scientific theory. I have argued that contemporary physics tells us that there are no elementary particles , in any metaphysically serious sense of the word “particle”. Quantum phenomena are not concrete particular entities. The replacement of quantum mechanics by quantum field theory has major consequences for our metaphysics, in that it calls into question the tradition of according categorial priority to particular entities. Instead, categorial priority should be accorded to generic processes. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

David Finkelstein

Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo, Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

We discuss some methodological aspects of the relation between physics and metaphysics by dealing specifically with the case of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Our main claim is that current attempts to productively integrate quantum mechanics and metaphysics are best seen as approaches of what should be called `the metaphysics of science', which is developed by applying already existing metaphysical concepts to scientific theories. We argue that, in this perspective, metaphysics must be understood as an autonomous discipline. It results that this metaphysics cannot hope to derive any kind of justification from science. Thus, one of the main motivations of such project, which is the obtaining of a scientifically respectable justification for the attribution of a single true metaphysical profile to the posits of a scientific theory, is doomed because of the emergence of metaphysical underdetermination from the outset. If metaphysics floats free from physics, which is a premise of such project of integration between these two areas, then it is always possible to attribute more than one metaphysical profile to dress physical entities.