Phenomenology and Quantum theory have defined themselves against the subject-object tradition of thought and against the modern objectivistic attempt to unify explanation of reality or being. Scientific technology and calculative way of thinking have prevailed over meditative and qualitative thinking in modern times. Despite scientific efforts to eliminate any inconsistency caused by metaphysical speculations and systems, in everyday life and science we encounter such phenomena which cannot be explained unambiguously and fully on the basis of purely conventional criteria. This paper focuses on Bohr's framework of complementarity. The idea enables us exploring and describing a given phenomenon in such manner that we get adequate knowledge of the same phenomenon or subject of interest only by completing incompatible descriptions
Phenomenology and Quantum theory have defined themselves against the subject-object tradition of thought and against the modern objectivistic attempt to unify explanation of reality or being. Scientific technology and calculative way of thinking have prevailed over meditative and qualitative thinking in modern times. Despite scientific efforts to eliminate any inconsistency caused by metaphysical speculations and systems, in everyday life and science we encounter such phenomena which cannot be explained unambiguously and fully on the basis of purely conventional criteria. This paper focuses on Bohr's framework of complementarity. The idea enables us exploring and describing a given phenomenon in such manner that we get adequate knowledge of the same phenomenon or subject of interest only by completing incompatible descriptions
Phenomenology and Quantum theory have defined themselves against the subject-object tradition of thought and against the modern objectivistic attempt to unify explanation of reality or being. Scientific technology and calculative way of thinking have prevailed over meditative and qualitative thinking in modern times. Despite scientific efforts to eliminate any inconsistency caused by metaphysical speculations and systems, in everyday life and science we encounter such phenomena which cannot be explained unambiguously and fully on the basis of purely conventional criteria. This paper focuses on Bohr's framework of complementarity. The idea enables us exploring and describing a given phenomenon in such manner that we get adequate knowledge of the same phenomenon or subject of interest only by completing incompatible descriptions.
From the preceding exposition it follows that not only physics but natural science as a whole is basically dependent on ordinary language. The complementarity of quantum physics displays the fundamental interdependence of observation and description of natural phenomena, and the very objectivity of natural science relies directly on the differentiation of experiences into external and private phenomena afforded by ordinary language. Because of the extreme smallness of the quantum of action the complementarity of physical phenomena is not experienced either in daily life or in classical physics. But the interdependence of observation and description of phenomena prevails as much in classical science as in quantum physics. The very aim of experimental investigation is to perform observations in those particular ways which make possible the communication of information sufficient for the reproduction of the observed phenomena. Concordantly the elementary physical variables, which are indispensable to any systematic analysis in natural science, are defined through reference to measuring arrangements constructed so as to be unambiguously describable in ordinary language. Thus no scientific formula, law, or result of measurement can be given objective significance independent of ordinary language. Through every hierarchy of descriptions in natural science ordinary language penetrates as the unambiguity of propositions.
Facultyof Scienceof the CharlesUniversityin Prague Mgr.Filip Grygar Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Quantum Gomplementarity in the Philosophy of Science PhD ThesisSummary 2008 An ambition of the presenteddissertation is an interdisciplinary treatise of phenomenology and quantum theory; therefore an attemptto connect two seemingly independently forming disciplines that have been holding a leading position in philosophical and scientificthinking since the beginningof the 20th century. Specifically, I lay stresson Heidegger's hermeneuticphenomenology on one hand and on Bohr's philosophy and the frame of complementariý on the otherhand. I outlined, in Chapter d how a monolithlc modern scientific view of the world and mathematizationof naturewas developed.Concurrently to this topic, I showed two for,med possibilities of thinking - meditative thinking and calculative thinking that is linked to Heidegger's analyses of essence of technology qua Gestel/. Since the appearanceof Husserl and Heidegger's phenomenology,modern objectivist scientific notions and the subject-object paradigm oťcalculative thinking has been called in question.Modern thinking and its world view turned out to be insufficient and its thinking showed to be single-sided in its description of nature (especially in its description of subatomic...
Abstract: Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics has been criticized as incoherent and opportunistic, and based on doubtful philosophical premises. If so Bohr’s influence, in the pre-war period of 1927-1939, is the harder to explain, and the acceptance of his approach to quantum mechanics over de Broglie’s had no reasonable foundation. But Bohr’s interpretation changed little from the time of its first appearance, and stood independent of any philosophical presuppositions. The principle of complementarity is itself best read as a conjecture of unusually wide scope, on the nature and future course of explanations in the sciences (and not only the physical sciences). If it must be judged a failure today, it is not because of any internal inconsistency. Despite the expenditure of much effort, I have been unable to obtain a clear understanding of Bohr’s principle of complementarity (Einstein). Bohr’s point- and the central point of quantum mechanics- is that no elemen-
Complementarity and Deconstruction: Plotnitsky's Analysis and Beyond Makoto Katsumori Akita University The philosophical thought of the modern physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1962), which revolves around the concept of complementarity, has long been a major subject of historical and philosophical inquiry. Many prior studies of Bohr's complementarity, however, seem to be limited by the fact that they largely proceed within the conceptual frames of the "mainstream" philosophy of science. This being the case, his radical questioning of traditional scientific and philosophical notions—such as the unambiguity of concepts and words—has not been adequately addressed, insofar as these notions are uncritically presupposed by the commentators themselves. In other words, Bohr's thought has often been interpreted under certain tacit premises of scientific rationality that are precisely of the kind targeted by his epistemological critique. In recent years, however, there have emerged new approaches to Bohr's idea of complementarity that place it in different, less conventional, philosophical contexts. Among the most notable of these is Arkady Plotnitsky's endeavor to connect Bohr's complementarity with Jacques Derrida's project of deconstruction. In the present article, based on my recent doctoral dissertation,1 I take up this contribution by Plotnitsky as a suitable point of reference from which to [End Page 435] explore anew Bohr's thought with its radical philosophical implications. After outlining Bohr's complementarity argument and Plotnitsky's reading thereof (in the first and second sections, respectively), I will examine a series of problems that seem to face, or to be left unsolved by, Plotnitsky's account (in the third section). This critical appraisal will finally lead me to sketch a new interpretive approach of my own (in the fourth section), which both extends and delimits the intersections between complementarity and deconstruction. As regards the historical development of Bohr's complementarity, I will largely restrict myself to the period between 1927 and 1950, in which the most crucial of his innovative ideas seem to have been presented. I. Bohr's Idea of Complementarity In his 1927 lecture delivered in Como, Italy, entitled "The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory," Niels Bohr introduced the concept and framework of complementarity as a pivotal idea in his interpretation of quantum theory. From then on, he continually developed the idea of complementarity with regard not only to quantum theory but to other fields of knowledge as well. In what follows, I will first outline his complementarity argument in its "early" period, stretching from 1927 to the mid-thirties,—or, more precisely, until just before his 1935 debate with EPR.2 Bohr starts by noting that "our usual description of physical phenomena is based entirely on the idea that the phenomena concerned may be observed without disturbing them appreciably."3 This notion of physical phenomena as undisturbed by observation underlies all of classical physics and is still maintained in the theory of relativity. However, Bohr continues, a new situation has arisen with the development of quantum theory, specifically with "the so-called quantum postulate, which attributes to any atomic process an essential discontinuity, or rather individuality, completely foreign to the classical theories"; this "individuality" implies that "any observation of atomic phenomena will involve an interaction with the [End Page 436] agency of observation not to be neglected" (PWNB, 1: 53–54.). In more specific terms, any observation aimed at space-time coordination brings about an exchange of momentum and energy with the measuring rods and clocks. It is crucial here that this interaction between the object and the instrument of observation is not simply unavoidable, but "uncontrollable," which represents a "feature of irrationality" brought into the description of nature (PWNB, 1: 68, 91). For insofar as the measuring instruments are to fulfill their purpose, the interaction itself cannot be taken into account, and thus the magnitude of the disturbance always remains unknown. It follows, in Bohr's view, that "an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation...
This thesis argues that Western thinking may have unwittingly erred with respect to its application of the principle of noncontradiction. It is in the discovery of the quantum phenomenon, and specifically the measurable discontinuity of quantum behaviour, where this hidden error may have finally been revealed. \n\tThe thesis arrives at this conclusion through a critical ontological analysis of the quantum phenomenon as it is defined in Neils Bohr’s complementarity interpretation of quantum behaviour. The thesis employs a method of ontological analysis adopted from the German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann. This method includes the identification and suspension of historical dogma and the analysis of ‘actual data’, which includes the phenomena of our experience and the related history of ideas. The analysis suspends our traditional application of noncontradiction to the underlying world in order to determine whether an alternative application of noncontradiction may be possible based on the quantum phenomenon. It is hypothesized from this that the potential contradiction suggested by quantum discontinuity (and the source of the so-called quantum mystery) may be overcome by acknowledging first our own implication in and as part of the same world and present moment. \n\tThe thesis takes the position, also essentially held by Bohr, that the quantum phenomenon represents the limit of objective knowledge as defined by the Kantian cognitive framework. Unlike Bohr, however, the thesis argues that, by considering our own implication in and as part of the same world and present moment, the limit of the phenomena (and thus objective knowledge) is revealed as complementary, that is to say, both jointly completing and mutually exclusive. The thesis argues that the implications of this are profound and lead ultimately to the need for a reconceptualisation of not just the quantum phenomenon, but also the present moment, reality and our own embodied cognition.