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Philosophy of Science

Quantum Theory and Novel Scientific Language: Defending a Pragmatist View

Tanner Leighton

Published Sep 3, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract This article advocates for a pragmatist view on quantum theory, offering a response to David Wallace’s recent criticisms of Richard Healey’s quantum pragmatism. In particular, I challenge Wallace’s general claim that quantum pragmatists—and antirepresentationalists more broadly—lack the resources to make sense of the novel “quantum” language used throughout modern physics in applications of quantum theory. I conclude by posing a challenge to quantum representationalists.

DOI
10.1017/psa.2025.10128

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Abstract This article advocates for a pragmatist view on quantum theory, offering a response to David Wallace’s recent criticisms of Richard Healey’s quantum pragmatism. In particular, I challenge Wallace’s general claim that quantum pragmatists—and antirepresentationalists more broadly—lack the resources to make sense of the novel “quantum” language used throughout modern physics in applications of quantum theory. I conclude by posing a challenge to quantum representationalists.
Richard Healey and Simon Friederich have each advocated a pragmatist interpretation of quantum mechanics as a way to dissolve its foundational problems. The idea is that if the way quantum claims are used are concentrated on, the foundational problems of quantum mechanics cannot be formulated, and so do not require solution. Their central contention is that the content of quantum claims differs from the content of non-quantum claims, in that the former is prescriptive whereas the latter is descriptive. Healey also argues that claims about non-decoherent systems are largely devoid of content. Chapter 9 considers various objections to these claims, noting in particular the ways in which the application of pragmatism to quantum mechanics differs from previous examples of pragmatist ‘therapy.’ It concludes that a pragmatist dissolution of the foundational difficulties of quantum mechanics is promising, but requires fairly radical changes to our understanding of the content of propositions and the extent of physical explanation.
Realism comes in many varieties, in science and elsewhere. Van Fraassen’s influential formulation took scientific realism to include the view that science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like. So understood, a quantum realist takes quantum theory to aim at correctly representing the world: many would add that its success justifies believing this representation is more or less correct. But quantum realism has been understood both more narrowly and more broadly. A pragmatist considers use prior to representation and this has prompted some to dub pragmatist views anti-realist, including the view of quantum theory that the author has been developing recently. But whether a pragmatist view of quantum theory should be labeled anti-realist depends not only on its ingredients but also on how that label should be applied. Pragmatism offers a healthy diet of quantum realism.
Abstract These essays in natural philosophy were all written from a pragmatist point of view developed over the past 15 years. They show what work pragmatism can do in science as well as philosophy. Many essays express a view of quantum theory developed using ideas of contemporary pragmatist philosophers: other essays apply these more widely to science and metaphysics. Quantum models are used not to represent physical systems but to offer good advice on how to represent them. The role of a quantum state is not to describe a system but to yield objective probabilities for alternative outcomes of events involving it. A situated agent could use these probabilities to decide what to do, and one can use them to explain phenomena. They are probabilities for physical events including measurements: pragmatist inferentialism helps one to say what these are, and when they have outcomes, thereby resolving the quantum measurement problem. One can use quantum theory locally to explain non-localized correlations, and why quantum field theory poses no ontological problem. Despite its unrivaled success, quantum theory offers no scientific image of the physical world on which a naturalist could construct a metaphysics. There are structural reasons why the rest of physical theory cannot be reduced to quantum theory. This pragmatist view of quantum theory is not instrumentalist. One essay explains why it should count as realist. Other essays defend pragmatist views of scientific laws and explanations as well as causation, truth, and objectivity.
Abstract While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with conceptual foundations. This situation poses a problem for a pragmatist for whom meaning derives from use. While disputes about how to use quantum theory have arisen from time to time, they have typically been quickly resolved, and consensus reached, within the relevant scientific sub-community. Yet rival accounts of the meaning of quantum theory continue to proliferate. This essay offers a diagnosis of this situation and outlines a pragmatist solution to the problem it poses, leaving further details for subsequent essays.
Abstract The introduction explains the origin and development of the views expressed in these essays. Fruitful interaction with physicists applying quantum theory provided the kernel for the author’s growing interest in contemporary pragmatism, initially as a source of ideas that could solve conceptual problems blocking an understanding of quantum theory. These pragmatist ideas were later applied to more general issues in the philosophy of science and metaphysics. After briefly sketching the pragmatist view of quantum theory defended in the essays, the introduction explains the implications—for the place of quantum theory in science, for metaphysics, and for the philosophy of science and specifically for the issue of scientific realism. New results in the foundations of physics prompted revision of the original view of the objectivity of quantum event outcomes. Some later essays show how elaborating a pragmatist view of the function of truth helped to acknowledge that the outcome of a quantum measurement is a relative fact that remains objective in the sense that matters for science: others take a neo-pragmatist view of causation, explanation, and laws in science. All these later essays illustrate the neo-pragmatist moral that by focusing on the intellectual function of a concept, one can satisfy a demand for understanding that might otherwise provoke a fruitless metaphysical quest.
While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with conceptual foundations. This situation poses a problem for a pragmatist for whom meaning derives from use. While disputes about how to use quantum theory have arisen from time to time, they have typically been quickly resolved, and consensus reached, within the relevant scientific sub-community. Yet, rival accounts of the meaning of quantum theory continue to proliferate.1 In this article, I offer a diagnosis of this situation and outline a pragmatist solution to the problem it poses, leaving further details for subsequent articles. 1 Introduction 2 The Objectivity of Quantum Probabilities 2.1 Quantum probabilities are objective 2.2 Quantum probabilities do not represent physical reality 3 How Quantum Theory Limits Description of Physical Reality 4 The Relational Nature of Quantum States 4.1 Rovelli's relationism 4.2 Quantum Bayesian relationism 4.3 Reference-frame relationism 4.4 Agent-situation relationism and wave-collapse 4.5 Why quantum probabilities are not Lewisian chances 5 The Objectivity of Physical Description in Quantum Theory 5.1 Why violations of Bell inequalities involve no physical non-locality 5.2 Objectivity, inter-subjectivity, and Wigner's friend 6 Conclusion