Niels Bohr, the founding father of modern atomic physics and quantum theory, was as original a philosopher as he was a physicist. This study explores several dimensions of Bohr's vision: the formulation of quantum theory and the problems associated with its interpretation, the notions of complementarity and correspondence, the debates with Einstein about objectivity and realism, and his sense of the infinite harmony of nature. The author's chief attention is given to Bohr's epistemological lesson, the conviction that all our description of nature is dependent on the words we use and the ways we can unambiguously use them. Against those who would view Bohr as a vague positivist, the author argues here that Bohr is best understood as using transcendental arguments and shaping a kind of descriptive metaphysics in his defence of our abilities to offer a description of the world we live in.
Niels Bohr, the founding father of modern atomic physics and quantum theory, was as original a philosopher as he was a physicist. This study explores several dimensions of Bohr's vision: the formulation of quantum theory and the problems associated with its interpretation, the notions of complementarity and correspondence, the debates with Einstein about objectivity and realism, and his sense of the infinite harmony of nature. The author's chief attention is given to Bohr's epistemological lesson, the conviction that all our description of nature is dependent on the words we use and the ways we can unambiguously use them. Against those who would view Bohr as a vague positivist, the author argues here that Bohr is best understood as using transcendental arguments and shaping a kind of descriptive metaphysics in his defence of our abilities to offer a description of the world we live in.
Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Physics: Twenty-First-Century Perspectives examines the philosophical views, influences and legacy of the Nobel Prize physicist and philosophical spokesman of the quantum revolution, Niels Bohr. The sixteen contributions in this collection by some of the best contemporary philosophers and physicists writing on Bohr’s philosophy today all carefully distinguish his subtle and unique interpretation of quantum mechanics from views often imputed to him under the banner of the “Copenhagen Interpretation.” With respect to philosophical influences on Bohr’s outlook, the contributors analyse prominent similarities between his viewpoint and Kantian ways of thinking, the views of the Danish philosopher Harald Høffding, and themes characteristic of American pragmatism. In recognizing the importance of Bohr’s epistemological naturalism they examine his defence of the indispensability of classical concepts from a variety of different perspectives. This collection shows us that Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, now nearly a century old, still has
Niels Bohr and Philosophy of Physics: Twenty-First Century Perspectives examines the philosophical views, influences and legacy of the Nobel Prize physicist and philosophical spokesman of the quantum revolution, Niels Bohr. The sixteen contributions in this collection by some of the best contemporary philosophers and physicists writing on Bohr's philosophy today all carefully distinguish his subtle and unique interpretation of quantum mechanics from views often imputed to him under the banner of the “Copenhagen Interpretation.” With respect to philosophical influences on Bohr's outlook, the contributors analyse prominent similarities between his viewpoint and Kantian ways of thinking, the views of the Danish philosopher Harald Høffding, and themes characteristic of American pragmatism. In recognizing the importance of Bohr's epistemological naturalism they examine his defence of the indispensability of classical concepts from a variety of different perspectives. This collection shows us that Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics, now nearly a century old, still has the power to shed light on a variety of issues that have arisen only since his lifetime, as well as decoherence theory and other non-collapse interpretations. Balancing historical themes with contemporary discussions, Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Physics establishes Bohr's on-going contribution to the philosophy of physics and examines his place in the history of philosophy.
Niels Bohr thought that what quantum mechanics has taught us is not only to understand something new, but also a new meaning of the term “to understand”. Bohr wanted to free himself from ontology by putting emphasis on epistemology; i.e. on certain conditions for observation and description. He believed that the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics was a crucial one. Basically it has two important aspects. 1. Bohr's philosophy leads to a break with the so-called correspondence theory for truth and meaning. It states that true propositions are descriptions of a world that is independent of our observations; i.e. that on a regular basis one can compare with reality, that is, in compare the two areas against each other. Bohr believed that this did not make sense, since in many situations cannot add meaning to a world that has a sich structure (the thing-in-itself), which in turn can be depicted when observed. 2. All knowledge is attained under certain conditions for description. Bohr thought that the long-lasting criterion for valid knowledge is that can communicate it unambiguously to each other. When Bohr emphasised that we are suspended in language in the sense that all knowledge determines what can say about the world in an understandable way, and not what the world actually is, this must be understood in the sense that only know the world as recognised; i.e., structured on the basis of the conditions for description, to which are, as part of the world, necessarily are subjected to. Bohr's emphasis on conditions for descriptions invalidates the well-known distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. An important feature of the descriptive use of ordinary language, as well as in classical physics, is that description is based on a dividing line between subject and object. This results in idealism and materialism not being tenable positions. Furthermore, it is such that cannot use the designation of things independently of the designation of time and space. Logical principles are only meaningfully applied in situations relating to our conditions for observation. So based on inspiration from Bohr, Favrholdt developed a more adequate and comprehensive philosophy, where he, among other things, states that all humans possess a fundamental language, underlying all languages. This constitutes a number of concepts – the core – where the correct use is dictated by the structure of the world, which humans learn through sensory perception and action.
This book gives a clear and comprehensive exposition of Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics. Bohr's ideas are of major importance, for they are the source of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics; yet they are obscure, and call for the sort of close analysis that this book provides. The book describes the historical background of the physics from which Bohr's ideas grew. The core of the book is a detailed analysis of Bohr's arguments for complementarity and of the interpretation which he put upon it. Special emphasis is placed throughout on the contrasting views of Einstein, and the great debate between Bohr and Einstein is thoroughly examined. The book traces the philosophical influences on Bohr, and unravels the realist and anti-realist strands in his thinking. Bohr's philosophy is critically assessed in the light of recent developments in the foundations of quantum physics (the work of Bell and others) and in philosophy (the realism-anti-realism debate) and it is revealed as being much more subtle and sophisticated than it is generally taken to be. While the book will be of interest to specialists, it is written in a style that will make it accessible to those who have no specialist knowledge of the relevant physics and philosophy.
Steen Brock paints a cross-disciplinary picture of the philosophical and scientific background for the rise of the quantum theory. He accounts for the unity of Kantian metaphysics of Nature, the Helmholtzian principles, and the Hamiltonian methods of modern pre-quantum physics. Brock shows how Planck's vision of a generalization of classical physics implies that the original quantum mechanics of Heisenberg can be regarded as a successful attempt to maintain this modern unity of physics. However, for Niels Bohr, the unity of science and metaphysics did not end in the world of physics. The development of quantum physics had general implications both for other sciences and for various philosophical issues. Brock discusses these matters with respect to recent topics within the philosophy of science and major interpretations of Bohr's ideas. The author invites the reader to follow a long and winding route of thought which, in the end, culminates in Bohr's ideas of complementarity, culture and Spirit.
I argue here that progress in understanding the lessons of quantum physics has been hindered by the tendency to cast Niels Bohr as a villain. Building on the work of Favrholdt, Faye, and Howard, I present a more accurate view of Bohr's proposal for the "epistemological lesson" of quantum physics. I then argue that several interpretive programs -- often presented as alternatives to Copenhagen -- are, after substantial conceptual work, arriving at a view that is notably similar to Bohr's. Using Maudlin’s formulation of the measurement problem as a foil, I argue that it relies on a notion of wave-function completeness that is inappropriate for a genuinely indeterministic theory, and one that Bohr consistently rejected. On Bohr's view, quantum theory permits concrete agents, situated within specific experimental contexts, to make objective descriptions, while refusing the demand for a single, context-free "description from nowhere".