Healey, Richard A. (2018) Quantum Theory: Realism or Pragmatism? [Preprint]
![[img]](https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
Quantum Theory Realism or Pragmatism Final.docx Download (53kB) |
Abstract
During his long and extraordinarily productive career Hilary Putnam occasionally flirted with pragmatism. But his scientific realism provided a fixed point of his attempts to interpret quantum theory. I have argued recently that pragmatist treatments of representation, explanation and probability are keys to understanding how we use quantum theory so successfully, and so how it should be interpreted.
For Putnam, scientific realism is itself a scientific hypothesis that explains the success of science. If I am right, the success of quantum theory undermines this kind of scientific realism while supporting a rival pragmatism. Scientific realism remains immune to empirical refutation if it is viewed not as a scientific hypothesis but as a regulative ideal. But a pragmatist view of quantum theory poses a challenge to a certain kind of metaphysical realism.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
||||||
| Additional Information: | Forthcoming in ANÁLISIS. | ||||||
| Keywords: | Hilary Putnam, scientific realism, metaphysical realism, pragmatism, quantum theory, measurement problem, non-locality, quantum ontology. | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism |
||||||
| Depositing User: | Richard Andrew Healey | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 14 May 2018 16:14 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 14 May 2018 16:14 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 14667 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism |
||||||
| Date: | 26 January 2018 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14667 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}