Current Debates in the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

Kefu Zhu

This chapter, along with the next two chapters, sets the basic context for the readers to go into the topic of this book. Physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers struggle to clarify the foundations of quantum mechanics and debate on the interpretations of quantum mechanics. What is the foundation of quantum mechanics and how to interpret the formalism of quantum mechanics are the core issues of concern in the philosophy of physics. These two questions also involve fundamental issues in the general philosophy of science and even metaphysics and epistemology. This chapter introduces the original thoughts, historical developments, and current status of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, as well as its connection with the philosophy of science and metaphysics; it also analyzes the classifications by Bell, Leifer, and Cabello on the spectrum of interpretations of quantum mechanics, which can be regarded as a sort of “navigation map”. On this basis, the main object of discussion in this book is introduced – the quantum histories interpretation.

D. I. Blokhint︠s︡ev

Olival Freire, Guido Bacciagaluppi, Olivier Darrigol +4 more

Quantum mechanics approaches its centenary with an impressive record. It became the backbone of most research in physics, led to applications such as the transistor and laser, and prompted an upheaval in the philosophy of science. Its scope and its precision have been constantly growing, and it is now promising more powerful computers and safer cryptography. This century of conquests has also been a time of ongoing debates about the foundations and interpretation of the theory, which has been referred to as the quantum controversy. The controversy has been unusually long and remains open. Jammer called it “a story without an ending” and Laloë described this coexistence of successes and doubts with the metaphor of the colossus with feet of clay. This Handbook is a survey on this history. Some of the so-called “interpretations” are not interpretations of a fixed formalism, they are different theories, thus it has been a debate about the interpretations and the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this volume, the “history of interpretations” is used for the sake of brevity. The successive parts of the Handbook deal with the scientific and philosophical issues under debate, historical landmarks, places and contexts, historical and philosophical theses, and the proliferation of interpretations. This Handbook may serve those interested in the history of quantum mechanics and those who are engaged with, or attracted by current research on quantum information, as it may give them a flavor of the history that led to or lay the groundwork for the current investigations.

Bas C. van Fraassen

This chapter aims to place the discussion of holism in quantum theory generally and of the problem of identical particles and quantum statistics specifically in the context of general philosophy. Various debates in metaphysics, both historical and current, broach related subjects and involve analyses of concepts currently used in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. These include concepts of identity, individuation, essence, form, necessity, possibility, modality, contingency, and universality. But this chapter also extends the previous one by introducing Fock space and the transition from elementary quantum mechanics to quantum field theory via 'second quantization’. For this formalism relates clearly to certain ’anti‐essentialist’ approaches in the metaphysics of modality. Finally, in keeping with the empiricism pursued in this book, the general enterprise of metaphysics pertaining to those topics is viewed here within an anti‐metaphysical stance, as having as its value the display of a plurality of interpretations whose very diversity enhances our understanding of the theory.

Max Jammer