Imperfection, Relations, and History. From Evolution to Quantum Physics and Contemporary Social Theory - The article examines a shared philosophical implication of evolutionary theory, quantum mechanics, and contemporary philosophy of science: the dissolution of an ontology grounded in enduring, self-sufficient substances. Darwin’s theory demonstrates that organisms are not realizations of a pre-given design but historically contingent compromises; quantum physics, through the problem of wave function collapse and the status of superposition, undermines the notion of particles as bearers of intrinsic, absolute properties. In dialogue with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (Rovelli) and the materialist account of collapse (Žižek), the article advances the thesis that relationality is not merely an epistemological limitation but an ontological feature of a world, in which properties exist only within relations. This shift is situated within the broader context of 20th-century philosophy of science, which emphasized the historical and discursive conditioning of scientific categories. Imperfection, contingency, and relationality thus emerge not as anomalies but as conditions of possibility for stability, history, and meaning—both in nature as well as in society.
Imperfection, Relations, and History. From Evolution to Quantum Physics and Contemporary Social Theory - The article examines a shared philosophical implication of evolutionary theory, quantum mechanics, and contemporary philosophy of science: the dissolution of an ontology grounded in enduring, self-sufficient substances. Darwin’s theory demonstrates that organisms are not realizations of a pre-given design but historically contingent compromises; quantum physics, through the problem of wave function collapse and the status of superposition, undermines the notion of particles as bearers of intrinsic, absolute properties. In dialogue with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics (Rovelli) and the materialist account of collapse (Žižek), the article advances the thesis that relationality is not merely an epistemological limitation but an ontological feature of a world, in which properties exist only within relations. This shift is situated within the broader context of 20th-century philosophy of science, which emphasized the historical and discursive conditioning of scientific categories. Imperfection, contingency, and relationality thus emerge not as anomalies but as conditions of possibility for stability, history, and meaning—both in nature as well as in society.
Abstract: This study comparatively investigates, at a philosophical level, the ontological and epistemological status of the concept of khora developed in Plato’s Timaeus in relation to the uncertainty principle that arises within the framework of quantum physics, particularly in the Copenhagen interpretation. It attempts, with careful attention to historical context, to clarify the points at which this notion belonging to ancient metaphysics displays structural similarities and divergences with the modern physical conception of the universe. In this direction, the discussion first analyzes the meaning of khora within Plato’s own cosmological, ontological, and scientific framework as presented in the Timaeus. It then examines the epistemological content of the uncertainty principle in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory and the ontological structure attributed to the subatomic domain, drawing on the literature of modern physics and philosophy of science. Without proceeding by way of direct identification, the two fields of thought are subjected to a relational comparison centered on the indeterminacy of being, the limits of knowledge, and the notion of an unfounded background. The study maintains that, despite historical and theoretical differences, khora and the uncertainty principle share a common problematic situated ontologically at the boundary between order and disorder, and epistemologically between determinability and indeterminacy. This convergence indicates that philosophical presuppositions and scientific theories are shaped through processes of reciprocal interaction. In particular, it suggests that the theoretical framework of quantum physics is not entirely independent of an intellectual inheritance that transcends classical metaphysics and bears certain idealist tendencies. Thus, the study aims to provide an interdisciplinary contribution demonstrating that ancient metaphysics and contemporary physics are not wholly disconnected domains, and that the scientific foundations of modern science rest upon deep philosophical roots, thereby encouraging a reinterpretation of the relationship between science and philosophy within a perspective of historical continuity.
We present a historical-epistemological analysis of the foundations of quantum mechanics, highlighting the relationships between quantum mechanics and scientific realism, as well as the influence of the neo-positivist philosophy of the first decades of the 20th century. The great significance of the measurement process in the context of quantum mechanics is underlined as an essential element in providing a coherent description of reality, moving from micro to macrocosm, as well as the role that the measurement apparatus and the consciousness of the observer assume during the act of measurement, the related ontological problems, the question of the objectification of the wave function, and that of the definition of discernibility. We consider also an overview of the most important alternative proposals to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics (Copenhagen interpretation), with particular reference to hidden variable theories and other alternatives to standard quantum mechanics philosophical approach, that are modifying the vision of reality, such as the Everett’s many-worlds theory, the QBism and unified holistic approaches, such as the Primordial Dynamic Space.
Amid the wide variety of interpretations of quantum mechanics, the notion of a fully coherent ontological interpretation has seen a promising evolution over the last few decades. Despite this progress, however, the old dualistic categorical constraints of subjectivity and objectivity, correlate with the metrically restricted definition of local and global, have remained largely in place – a reflection of the broader, persistent inheritance of these comfortable strictures throughout the evolution of modern science. If one traces this inheritance back to its ancient roots in Plato and Aristotle, it is clear that the coherence, scientific utility, and historical durability of the various natural philosophies that followed have been directly proportional to their commitment, tacit or explicit, to object-oriented realism. As Simondon might put it, it is a commitment to the primacy of individuated substance over the process of individuation. For Whitehead, it is the misplaced assimilation of becoming to being, of potentiality to actuality. Quantum mechanics has challenged this commitment with a combined breadth and depth of force that far exceeds any other theory in the history of science. The theory’s objectively demonstrable empirical application is manifest only by way of a fundamentally subjective, context-dependent mechanism of measurement. More compelling still, actual system states are always actualizations of locally contextualized yet globally conditioned potential system states, such that “globally objective” reality is no longer merely the object of local measurement, but also its product. Thus, any coherent, ontological interpretation of quantum theory must include a conceptual framework by which objectivity and subjectivity, actuality and potentiality, global and local, being and becoming, individuated fact and process of individuation, are no longer understood as merely epistemic, mutually exclusive category pairs descriptive of an already extant, closed reality – but rather as mutually implicative ontological categories explicative of an ontogenetic, open reality-in-process.
This work presents a historical-epistemological analysis of the foundations of quantum mechanics. From a philosophical point of view, the relationships between quantum mechanics and scientific realism are highlighted, as well as the influence of the neo-positivist philosophy of the first decades of the 20th century. The great significance of measurement in the context of quantum mechanics is underlined, as an essential element in providing a coherent description of reality moving from the microcosm to the macrocosm, as well as the role that the measurement apparatus and the consciousness of the observer assume during the act of measurement, the ontological problem, the problem of the objectification of the wave function and the problem of the definition of discernibility. This is followed by an overview of the most important alternative proposals to the standard interpretation (Copenhagen interpretation), with particular reference to hidden variable theories, and other alternatives to standard quantum mechanics that profoundly modify the vision of reality, such as the Everett’s many-worlds theory, the QBism, the unified holistic approach.
With the advent of quantum theory, the philosophical distinction between “what appears to be” and “what is reasoned to be” has once again, after several centuries of easy dismissal by classical mechanistic materialism, become an important feature of physics. In recent well-regarded interpretations of quantum physics, including those proposed by Robert Griffiths, Roland Omnès, and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, we have seen careful investigations into the physical (i.e., not “merely philosophical”) distinction between the order of contingent causal relation and the order of necessary logical implication. I argue that a careful philosophical exploration of the function of the logical order in modern interpretations of quantum physics compels the abandonment of derivative classical, dualistic understandings of “determinism versus indeterminism,” “logical necessity versus causal contingency,” “subject versus object,” “epistemic versus ontological,” among other fundamental dualisms. The incoherence underlying this classical understanding of these principle-pairs as mutually exclusive features of reality can be relieved if they are instead understood as mutually implicative features of fundamental units of relation or “quantum praxes.”
Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence.