Quantum Metaphysics

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.

Howard Burton, ARTUR K. EKERT

Vladislav Terekhovich

The article continues the debate about whether classical “pure” metaphysics can explain scientific theories or science can generate its own metaphysical concepts. Two camps have emerged in modern analytic philosophy. The “metaphysician” camp defends the metaphysics of science by arguing that the fundamental con­cepts of classical metaphysics can be enriched, illustrated, or justified by exam­ples from scientific theories. The “philosophers of science” camp views this as yet another invasion of metaphysics into their scientific territory. They advocate a scientific or naturalized metaphysics that strictly corresponds to modern scien­tific theories. Since the concept of possible worlds is a key element of main­stream analytic metaphysics, proponents of the metaphysics of science find it natural to appeal to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. In turn, proponents of naturalized metaphysics often use popular metaphysical systems to justify the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I will argue that the interpretation originally proposed by H. Everett remains only one of the on­tologies of quantum theory, and attempts by philosophers of science to build a metaphysical construct on its basis encounter serious difficulties.

David Z. Albert

Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo, Jonas R. Becker Arenhart

It is a widespread consensus among metaphysicians that the bundle and substratum theories are substantially different metaphysical theories of individuality. In a realist stance towards metaphysics, they cannot both track the truth when describing fundamental reality, thus they’re rival metaphysical theories. Against that consensus, Jiri Benovsky has advanced a metametaphysical thesis that they are in fact metaphysically equivalent. This paper challenges Benovsky’s equivalence thesis with two counter-arguments based on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics: quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and wavefunction realism. As we shall argue, while both substratum and bundle theories arguably fail in standard quantum mechanics, they fail in different ways. Hence, given Benovsky’s own notion of metaphysical equivalence, they are not equivalent.