On the Tension between Ontology and Epistemology in Quantum Probabilities

Florian J. Boge

Arkady Plotnitsky, Andrei Yu. Khrennikov

Maxim V. Kharkevich

Quantum physics can be understood as an epistemological rupture that transforms the foundations of modern scientific rationality. In contrast to the Newtonian mechanistic worldview that underpinned universalist notions of progress, objectivity, and control, quantum mechanics introduces uncertainty, contextuality, non-locality, and the constitutive role of observation into scientific knowledge. These features destabilize the image of reality as a unified, hierarchically structured, and fully transparent domain, thereby challenging the epistemic premises of Western universalism. At the cultural level, this rupture finds expression in forms of scientific magical realism, where the quantum world appears as strange, paradoxical, elusive and fundamentally ungraspable. Such representations allow the quantum revolution to be interpreted not only as a theoretical breakthrough in physics but as an internal epistemological transformation of modern rationality itself. The issue is not the abandonment of rationality, but the reconfiguration of its foundations: the acknowledgment of uncertainty, contextuality, and the participatory role of the observer as structural features of knowledge. This shift is comparable to the epistemological tensions identified by postcolonial theory in situations where hegemonic discourses encounter forms of knowledge that cannot be reduced to their universalist logic. In this sense, quantum physics emerges as a form of internal epistemological alterity within Western science: while remaining part of its canon, it simultaneously rearticulates its ontological assumptions and limits its claim to constitute the sole normative regime of rationality. Extending quantum logic into social theory enables a shift from mechanistic social ontology toward a quantum social ontology, in which relationality, co-constitution, and process take precedence over fixed entities and linear causality. This transformation unfolds as a form of passive revolution, in the Gramscian sense: a profound ontological reorientation achieved not through the destruction of disciplinary institutions, but through their gradual conceptual reconfiguration. The epistemological outcome of this shift is the pluralization of knowledge and the emergence of a pluriversal onto-epistemological horizon, where scientific rationality becomes compatible with multiple cosmologies and situated ways of knowing. In this sense, the quantum turn opens a pathway toward the decolonization of knowledge and the rethinking of global order beyond universalist epistemic hierarchies.

Henry Daniel Vera Ramírez

The text points out that one of the main contradictions of quantum realism, which is particularly relevant to the social sciences, is the tension between the existence of an observer-independent reality and the idea that this reality is mediated by the cognitive and interpretative processes of the subject. This contradiction arises from the central role of the observer in phenomena such as the collapse of the wave function and their influence on the construction of reality, which challenges the classical notion of an objective, non-perceptual nature. Moreover, the encounter between social realism and socialinterpretivism lies in the fact that, in the social sciences, it is also recognized that human interpretations and actions shape social reality, creating a scenario in which absolute objectivity becomes difficult to sustain. These tensions, therefore enrich the epistemological and ontological debate, showing that the contradictions of quantum realism transcend physics and connect deeply with the difficulties and dynamics of the social construction of reality.

Henry Daniel Vera Ramírez

The text points out that one of the main contradictions of quantum realism, which is particularly relevant to the social sciences, is the tension between the existence of an observer-independent reality and the idea that this reality is mediated by the cognitive and interpretative processes of the subject. This contradiction arises from the central role of the observer in phenomena such as the collapse of the wave function and their influence on the construction of reality, which challenges the classical notion of an objective, non-perceptual nature. Moreover, the encounter between social realism and social interpretivism lies in the fact that, in the social sciences, it is also recognized that human interpretations and actions shape social reality, creating a scenario in which absolute objectivity becomes difficult to sustain. These tensions, therefore enrich the epistemological and ontological debate, showing that the contradictions of quantum realism transcend physics and connect deeply with the difficulties and dynamics of the social construction of reality.