The role of philosophy in the conceptual development of quantum physics

Martin Sjardijn

Abstract This thesis investigates the hypothesis that Romantic Naturphilosophie — particularly as developed by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) — provided a conceptual framework that anticipated the paradigm shifts of twentieth-century quantum mechanics. By combining a genealogical analysis with a systematic comparison of metaphysical principles and physical theories, it is argued that themes such as polarity, processuality, non-locality, the constitutive role of the observer, and the synthetic function of art are central to both Schelling’s thought and quantum physics. The study is situated at the intersection of the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, aesthetics, and theoretical physics.

Catherine Chevalley

Christopher W. Tyler

Henry Stapp is well known for his advanced views of Quantum Physics and particularly for development of the view that the mind of the observer is intimately involved in the collapse of the wave function when an observation is made. He expands this view to a cosmic mind conceptualization that, in common with much of Quantum Physics, seems to challenge the bounds of rational logic. My own work has been in developing an Emergent Aspect Dualism of the nature of the universe that attempts to build a coherent philosophy of the mental and quantal complexities on an entirely rational basis. Yet, there are numerous points of contact between the two philosophies in the dual aspects of the nature of mind, the interrogative nature of consciousness, the elimination of the physical collapse of the wavefunction, and the creative emergence of the physical complexity of the universe. Where the philosophies diverge is in conceptualizing the existence of a cosmic mind underlying the organization of the physical universe; for Emergent Aspect Dualism the only form of cosmic mind could be the universe itself, operating at a cosmic time scale.

Cord Friebe, Meinard Kuhlmann, Holger Lyre +3 more

Henry Mehlberg, Robert S. Cohen

Philippe Stamenkovic

This article revisits Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of quantum physics as developed in his last epistemological work Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik (1936), in particular his main thesis which posits that causality can be maintained in quantum theory, provided its object is re-conceptualized. I study the ranking of the principle of causality in Cassirer’s hierarchy of physical knowledge, and show that its role is both constitutive and regulatory. This is linked to Cassirer’s rejection of the Kantian faculty of intuition. I review other characteristics of Cassirer’s conception of physical theory (in particular holism) and analyze in detail how Cassirer manages to shift from an observationalist interpretation of Heisenberg’s relations (negative, as a lack of information) to a constitutive interpretation (positive, as a new definition of the object) of these relations. I conclude by showing that Cassirer’s interpretation of quantum theory is more promising than Friedman’s Kant-inspired « relativized a priori » conception.