Some considerations are presented on the so called “ontological interpretations” of quantum physics, starting from a remark by Werner Heisenberg on the relation between the probabilistic character of quantum states and the Aristotelian notion of “potency”. We show how an interesting revival of the original idea by Heisenberg can be found in the recent scientific and epistemological literature, in order to solve some paradoxical aspects emerging within some of the usual interpretations of quantum physics. Moreover a way seems to be open in order to rediscover the role of Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of “analogy” of “causal agents” operating even in the physical world. The “Potency-Act” interpretation of quantum physics appears aside the role of the Aristotelian notion of “Form” when it is compared with the recent notion of “information” in the context of the physics of “complex systems” and the biology of “living systems”.
Some considerations are presented on the so called “ontological interpretations” of quantum physics, starting from a remark by Werner Heisenberg on the relation between the probabilistic character of quantum states and the Aristotelian notion of “potency”. We show how an interesting revival of the original idea by Heisenberg can be found in the recent scientific and epistemological literature, in order to solve some paradoxical aspects emerging within some of the usual interpretations of quantum physics. Moreover a way seems to be open in order to rediscover the role of Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of “analogy” of “causal agents” operating even in the physical world. The “Potency-Act” interpretation of quantum physics appears aside the role of the Aristotelian notion of “Form” when it is compared with the recent notion of “information” in the context of the physics of “complex systems” and the biology of “living systems”.
Abstract When Werner Heisenberg presented his views of the fundamental indeterminism to which his uncertainty principle pointed in the basic levels of reality described by quantum mechanics, he used the Aristotelian technical terms of act and potency, affirming that the quantum system is in potency before the measurement and that the potency was actualised when the measurement took place, speaking thus of a ‘new ontology’ of quantum mechanics. I argue that Thomas Aquinas’ Aristotelian account of indeterminism in nature, through his analysis of the notions of matter as potency and form as act, can provide a suitable framework to understand Heisenberg's philosophical intuition about the nature of quantum systems.
The discovery of quantum physics opened a broad debate on the epistemological status of the principle of causality. In this article, I analyze the problem of causality in Heisenberg by distinguishing two levels of philosophical explanation in his thought. As a philosopher of science, his understanding of causality is closely linked to Moritz Schlick, although he will later adopt a neo-Kantian view of the a priori. As a philosopher of nature, Heisenberg recovers the notion of potency to understand the wave function. My thesis is that this notion of potency could have allowed him to elaborate a realistic and nondeterministic theory of causality, but the identification of causality and determinism (in Schlick’s line) did not lead him to such a conclusion.
Does the success of quantum mechanics require that we abandon the notion of complete scientific explanation? Or does it represent a breakthrough in the explanatory scope of physical theories? Ever since Werner Heisenberg formulated the theory of matrix mechanics in 1925, this issue has been the topic of a continuing philosophical debate. In this essay I propose to explain Heisenberg's rejection of the mechanistic philosophy associated with classical physics and the significance of his return to Aristotle's concept of matter as potency.
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is investigated from a philosophical point of view. It is justified the opinion that the philosophical attitude the Copenhagen interpretation is based on is in principle inevitable for a real comprehension of quantum theory. This attitude is mainly related to epistemological arguments. However, the measurement problem often seems not to be treated clearly enough within the interpretation. By referring to the property of the necessity to use macroscopic measurement instruments obeying classical concepts it is made the attempt to solve the measurement problem. According to this consideration the indeterministic character of quantum theory seems to have its origin in a lack of knowledge and thus it appears in a similar but more principle way than in statistical mechanics. It is emphasized the ontological character of the uncertainty relation and the related non locality of quantum theory suggesting that the existence of a position space is not as fundamental as the assumptions of general quantum theory.
Given the controversial status of the various interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM for short), it may seem crazy to use the philosophy of quantum physics to try to learn some lessons about the prevailing problems in the literature on dispositions and causal powers. However, such an attempt seems worthwhile for at least three reasons. The first is more internal to the philosophy of QM. Apart from a seminal paper by Robert Clifton and Constantine Pagonis (1995), who investigated the issue of dispositional properties in Bohmian mechanics, very little has been done to shed This neglect seems particularly surprising, especially if one considers that some of the founding fathers of quantum physics, notably Werner Heisenberg, have made direct reference to Aristotelian potentiae to refer to and interpret the elusive nature of the atomic and subatomic world ‘in se’, that is, before measurement: ‘Such a probability function [i.e. the statistical algorithm of quantum theory] combines objective and subjective elements. It contains statements on possibilities, or better tendencies (“potentiae” in Aristotelian philosophy), and such statements are completely objective, they don’t depend on any observer the passage from the “possible” to the Some years before, Henry Margenau3 had already characterized the properties of quantum systems as merely latent, in contrast to the properties intervening in the description of classical systems, which are always definite even when they are merely dispositional. Similarly, Karl Popper4 and Nicholas Maxwell5 have defended some sort of a propensity interpretation of probability, and a view of quantum reality essentially characterized by irreducibly probabilistic propensities. Influenced by this tradition, Michael Redhead’s influential textbook on the philosophy of QM distinguishes among three different interpretations of the theory, the second of which presupposes real propensities and potentialities and attributes to measurements the function of ‘converting latent values in possessed values’.6 Clearly, for this second interpretation to make less than an instrumentalistic sense, one needs to construe potentialities and dispositions as real properties of systems. Consequently, it seems important to try to get a firmer grasp of the sense in which QM might need irreducible dispositions to shed light on the nature of the properties of quantum systems before measurements, in particular when the state of such systems is not an eigenstate of the relevant physical observable.
In PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY: The Revolution Modern Science, (1) Werner Heisenberg aims, in not too technical language, to clarify change concept of reality manifesting itself quantum theory. He means to contribute to an articulation of the (not only epistemology) that underlies quantum theory's modified logical patterns. (2) To highly unusual degree, Heisenberg is gripped by sense of responsibility of modern quantum physicist to convey, language immediately intelligible to thinking public, his most serious and far-reaching reflections on metaphysical implications of his scientific work. One may go so far as to say that there is substantial evidence, partly within Physics and Philosophy, that Heisenberg regards such reflections and their public communication as his most important task. Heisenberg is especially apt for this intensely self-conscious contribution to humanity's historical-cultural development because his stature as principal originating architect of quantum at its most fundamental level is complemented by his deployment of an unusually broad and deep erudition and lifelong preoccupation with philosophic and artistic ontology from Anaximander through Kant and Goethe to Heidegger. No thinker has yet appeared who possesses such an authoritative combination of decisively necessary learning quantum physics and historical development of philosophic ontology. Despite flurry of renewed scholarly interest development of Heisenberg's scientific work, (3) and his complex relation to dramatic unfolding of German cultural his time, (4) there has yet to be executed sustained and philosophically critical interpretative commentary on this book that is his crucial philosophical-ontological legacy. Given profound ontological puzzles that continue to attend quantum physics and its implications for humanity's past as well as present and future conception of reality, such critical exegesis of this text is overdue. In what follows I try to extricate central nerve of Heisenberg's sinuously unfolding, dialectical exposition, and process to elucidate its strengths but also its deep ambiguities and perplexities--which express, I believe, fundamental dilemmas that pervade contemporary ontology. I Heisenberg makes inviolability of principle of noncontradiction cornerstone of his discussion. Unlike Aristotle (5) Heisenberg does not wrestle with challenge posed by possible denial of principle. He understands nonmathematical articulation of quantum to escape what would otherwise be devastating contradictions--most obviously contradiction wave/particle character of basic entities described by theory--through Bohr's famous principle of complementarity (which Heisenberg closely associates with von Weizsacker's notion of coexistent states), combined with Heisenberg's own principle of potentia, potentiality, potentialities. (6) II After brief introduction, Heisenberg his second chapter sketches history of quantum theory and process begins to explain what he means by potentia. In 1924 Bohr and his colleagues tried to solve apparent contradiction between picture and particle picture by concept of wave. The electromagnetic were treated not as 'real' waves but as mathematical descriptions of probabilities, every point relevant space, for the absorption (or induced emission) of light quantum by an atom at this point. Later this idea of was applied more effectively to much more abstract mathematical in many-dimensional configuration space that was discovered through researches of Schrodinger. Heisenberg reinterprets this mathematical probability wave ontological tenus, as signaling tendency [Tendenz] for a definite happening [einem bestimmten Geschehen], thus introducing remarkable kind of physical reality, standing middle between possibility and actuality: a quantitative version of old concept of 'dunamis' or 'potentia' philosophy of Aristotle. …