Scientific Realism and Primitive Ontology Or: The Pessimistic Induction and the Nature of the Wave Function
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v5i1.10Mots-clés :
scientific realism, pessimistic meta-induction, elective realism, local realism, explanationist realism, primitive ontology, structural realism, quantum mechanics, wave function ontology, wave function realismRésumé
In this paper, I wish to connect the recent debate in the philosophy of quantum mechanics concerning the nature of the wave function to the historical debate in the philosophy of science regarding the tenability of scientific realism. Advocating realism about quantum mechanics is particularly challenging when focusing on the wave function. According to the wave function ontology approach, the wave function is a concrete physical entity. In contrast, according to an alternative viewpoint, namely the primitive ontology approach, the wave function does not represent physical objects. In this paper, I argue that the primitive ontology approach can naturally be interpreted as an instance of the so-called explanationist realism, which has been proposed as a response to the pessimistic-meta induction argument against scientific realism. If my arguments are sound, then one could conclude that: (1) contrary to what is commonly thought, if explanationism realism is a good response to the pessimistic-meta induction argument, it can be straightforwardly extended also to the quantum domain; (2) the primitive ontology approach is in better shape than the wave function ontology approach in resisting the pessimistic-meta induction argument against scientific realism.
Références
ALBERT, David Z. 1996. Elementary Quantum Metaphysics. In CUSHING, James, FINE, Arthur, and GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon (eds.). Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum Theory: An Appraisal. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 277-284.
ALBERT, David Z. 2013. Wave Function Realism. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 52-57.
ALBERT, David Z. 2015. After Physics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). 2013. The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2008. On the Common Structure of Bohmian Mechanics and the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Theory. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 59, 353-389.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2011. Many-Worlds and Schrödinger’s First Quantum Theory. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 62, 1-27.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2014. Predictions and Primitive Ontology in Quantum Foundations: A Study of Examples. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 65, 323-352.
ALLORI, Valia. 2013. Primitive Ontology and the Structure of Fundamental Physical Theories. In: ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 58-75.
ALLORI, Valia. 2015. Quantum Mechanics and Paradigm Shifts. Topoi, 32, 313-323.
BELL, John Stuart. 1987. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Second edition reprinted in 2004.
BENATTI, Fabio, GHIRARDI, GianCarlo, GRASSI, Renata. 1995. Describing the Macroscopic World: Closing the Circle within the Dynamical Reduction Program. Foundations of Physics, 25, 5-38 .
BHOGAL, Harjit, and PERRY, Zee. 2015. What the Humean Should Say About Entanglement. Noûs, 1, 74-94.
BOHM, David. 1952. A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of ‘Hidden’ Variables, I and II. Physical Review, 85, 166-193.
CALLENDER, Craig. 2015. One World, One Beable. Synthese, 192, 3153–3177.
CHANG, Hasok. 2003. Preservative Realism and Its Discontents: Revisiting Caloric. Philosophy of Science, 70, 902-912.
DOWKER, Fay, and HERBAUTS, Isabelle. 2005. The Status of the Wave Function in Dynamical Collapse Models. Foundations of Physics Letters 18, 499-518.
DÜRR, Detlef, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 1992. Quantum Equilibrium and the Origin of Absolute Uncertainty. Journal of Statistical Physics, 67, 843-907.
DÜRR, Detlef, MÜNCH-BERNDL, Katrin, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 1998. Hypersurface Bohm-Dirac Models. Journal of Statistical Physics, 67, 843-907.
ELSAMAHI, Mohamed. 2005. A Critique of Localized Realism. Philosophy of Science, 72, 1350-1360.
ESFELD, Michael. 2017. How to Account for Quantum Non-locality: Ontic Structural Realism and the Primitive Ontology of Quantum Physics. Synthese, 194, 2329–2344.
ESFELD, Michael, LAZAROVICI, Dustin, HUBER, Mario, and DÜRR, Detlef. 2014. The Ontology of Bohmian Mechanics. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 65, 773–796.
ESFELD, Michael. 2004. Quantum Entanglement and a Metaphysics of Relations. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 35 (4), 601-617.
ESFELD, Michael. 2014. Quantum Humeanism, or: Physicalism without Properties. The Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 453–470.
EVERETT, Hugh. 1957. Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Review of Modern Physics, 29, 454-462.
FRENCH, Stephen. 1998. On the Withering Away of Physical Objects. In CASTELLANI, Elena (ed.). Interpreting Bodies: Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern Physics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 93–113.
GHIRARDI, Giancarlo, RIMINI, Alberto, and WEBER, Tulio. 1986. Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems. Physical Review D, 34, 470-491.
GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2013. Reality and the Role of the Wave Function in Quantum Theory. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 96-109.
HALLIDAY, David, and RESNICK, Robert. 1962. Physics for Students of Science and Engineering, Part II. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
KITCHER, Philip. 1995. The Advancement of Science Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. Oxford University Press.
LADYMAN, James. 1998. What is Structural Realism?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 29, 409-424.
LADYMAN, James. 2014. Structural Realism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/structural-realism/>.
LAUDAN, Larry. 1981. A Confutation of Convergent Realism. Philosophy of Science, 48, 19-49.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2004. Life in Configuration Space. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55, 713–729.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2005. Interpreting Spontaneous Collapse Theories. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36, 165–180.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2006. GRW: A Case Study in Quantum Ontology. Philosophy Compass 1: 224–244.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2013. Dimension and Illusion. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press: 110–125.
LOEWER, Barry. 1996. Humean Supervenience. Philosophical Topics, 24(1), 101-127.
MAUDLIN, Tim. 2007. Completeness, Supervenience, and Ontology. Journal of Physics A, 40, 3151.
MAUDLIN, Tim. 2013. The Nature of the Quantum State. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 126-154.
MILLER, Elisabeth. 2014. Quantum Entanglement, Bohmian Mechanics, and Humean Supervenience. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92, 567-583.
MONTON, Bradley. 2002. Wave Function Ontology. Synthese, 130(2), 265–277.
MONTON, Bradley. 2006. Quantum Mechanics and 3-N Dimensional Space. Philosophy of Science, 73 (5), 778-789.
NEY, Alyssa. 2012. The Status of Our Ordinary Three-dimensions in a Quantum Universe. Noûs, 46, 525–560.
NEY, Alyssa. 2013. Ontological Reduction and the Wave Function Ontology. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 168-183.
NEY, Alyssa. 2015. Fundamental Physical Ontologies and the Constraint of Empirical Coherence. Synthese, 192(10), 3105–3124.
NEY, Alyssa. 2017. Finding the World in the Wave Function: Some Strategies for Solving the Macro-object Problem. Synthese, 1-23.
NEY, Alyssa. Forthcoming. Separability, Locality, and Higher Dimensions in Quantum Mechanics. In DASGUPTA, Shamik, and WESLAKE, Brad, (eds.). Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.
NORSEN, Travis. 2010. The Theory of (Exclusively) Local Beables. Foundations of Physics 40, 1858-1884.
NORTH, Jill. 2013. The Structure of the Quantum World. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 184–202.
PSILLOS, Stathis. 1994. A Philosophical Study of the Transition from the Caloric Theory of Heat to Thermodynamics: Resisting the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 25, 159-90.
PSILLOS, Stathis. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge.
STANDFORD, Kyle. 2003a. Pyrrhic Victories for Scientific Realism. Journal of Philosophy, 100, 553–572.
STANDFORD, Kyle. 2003b. No Refuge for Realism: Selective Confirmation and the History of Science. Philosophy of Science, 70, 913–925.
TUMULKA, Roderich. 2006. A Relativistic Version of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Model. Journal of Statistical Physics, 125, 821-840.
WORRALL, John. 1989. Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds? Dialectica, 43, 99–124.
ALBERT, David Z. 2013. Wave Function Realism. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 52-57.
ALBERT, David Z. 2015. After Physics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). 2013. The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2008. On the Common Structure of Bohmian Mechanics and the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Theory. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 59, 353-389.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2011. Many-Worlds and Schrödinger’s First Quantum Theory. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 62, 1-27.
ALLORI, Valia, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, TUMULKA, Roderich, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2014. Predictions and Primitive Ontology in Quantum Foundations: A Study of Examples. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 65, 323-352.
ALLORI, Valia. 2013. Primitive Ontology and the Structure of Fundamental Physical Theories. In: ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 58-75.
ALLORI, Valia. 2015. Quantum Mechanics and Paradigm Shifts. Topoi, 32, 313-323.
BELL, John Stuart. 1987. Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Second edition reprinted in 2004.
BENATTI, Fabio, GHIRARDI, GianCarlo, GRASSI, Renata. 1995. Describing the Macroscopic World: Closing the Circle within the Dynamical Reduction Program. Foundations of Physics, 25, 5-38 .
BHOGAL, Harjit, and PERRY, Zee. 2015. What the Humean Should Say About Entanglement. Noûs, 1, 74-94.
BOHM, David. 1952. A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of ‘Hidden’ Variables, I and II. Physical Review, 85, 166-193.
CALLENDER, Craig. 2015. One World, One Beable. Synthese, 192, 3153–3177.
CHANG, Hasok. 2003. Preservative Realism and Its Discontents: Revisiting Caloric. Philosophy of Science, 70, 902-912.
DOWKER, Fay, and HERBAUTS, Isabelle. 2005. The Status of the Wave Function in Dynamical Collapse Models. Foundations of Physics Letters 18, 499-518.
DÜRR, Detlef, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 1992. Quantum Equilibrium and the Origin of Absolute Uncertainty. Journal of Statistical Physics, 67, 843-907.
DÜRR, Detlef, MÜNCH-BERNDL, Katrin, GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 1998. Hypersurface Bohm-Dirac Models. Journal of Statistical Physics, 67, 843-907.
ELSAMAHI, Mohamed. 2005. A Critique of Localized Realism. Philosophy of Science, 72, 1350-1360.
ESFELD, Michael. 2017. How to Account for Quantum Non-locality: Ontic Structural Realism and the Primitive Ontology of Quantum Physics. Synthese, 194, 2329–2344.
ESFELD, Michael, LAZAROVICI, Dustin, HUBER, Mario, and DÜRR, Detlef. 2014. The Ontology of Bohmian Mechanics. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 65, 773–796.
ESFELD, Michael. 2004. Quantum Entanglement and a Metaphysics of Relations. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 35 (4), 601-617.
ESFELD, Michael. 2014. Quantum Humeanism, or: Physicalism without Properties. The Philosophical Quarterly, 64, 453–470.
EVERETT, Hugh. 1957. Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Review of Modern Physics, 29, 454-462.
FRENCH, Stephen. 1998. On the Withering Away of Physical Objects. In CASTELLANI, Elena (ed.). Interpreting Bodies: Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern Physics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 93–113.
GHIRARDI, Giancarlo, RIMINI, Alberto, and WEBER, Tulio. 1986. Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems. Physical Review D, 34, 470-491.
GOLDSTEIN, Sheldon, and ZANGHÍ, Nino. 2013. Reality and the Role of the Wave Function in Quantum Theory. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 96-109.
HALLIDAY, David, and RESNICK, Robert. 1962. Physics for Students of Science and Engineering, Part II. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
KITCHER, Philip. 1995. The Advancement of Science Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. Oxford University Press.
LADYMAN, James. 1998. What is Structural Realism?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 29, 409-424.
LADYMAN, James. 2014. Structural Realism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/structural-realism/>.
LAUDAN, Larry. 1981. A Confutation of Convergent Realism. Philosophy of Science, 48, 19-49.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2004. Life in Configuration Space. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55, 713–729.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2005. Interpreting Spontaneous Collapse Theories. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36, 165–180.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2006. GRW: A Case Study in Quantum Ontology. Philosophy Compass 1: 224–244.
LEWIS, Peter J. 2013. Dimension and Illusion. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press: 110–125.
LOEWER, Barry. 1996. Humean Supervenience. Philosophical Topics, 24(1), 101-127.
MAUDLIN, Tim. 2007. Completeness, Supervenience, and Ontology. Journal of Physics A, 40, 3151.
MAUDLIN, Tim. 2013. The Nature of the Quantum State. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press. 126-154.
MILLER, Elisabeth. 2014. Quantum Entanglement, Bohmian Mechanics, and Humean Supervenience. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92, 567-583.
MONTON, Bradley. 2002. Wave Function Ontology. Synthese, 130(2), 265–277.
MONTON, Bradley. 2006. Quantum Mechanics and 3-N Dimensional Space. Philosophy of Science, 73 (5), 778-789.
NEY, Alyssa. 2012. The Status of Our Ordinary Three-dimensions in a Quantum Universe. Noûs, 46, 525–560.
NEY, Alyssa. 2013. Ontological Reduction and the Wave Function Ontology. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 168-183.
NEY, Alyssa. 2015. Fundamental Physical Ontologies and the Constraint of Empirical Coherence. Synthese, 192(10), 3105–3124.
NEY, Alyssa. 2017. Finding the World in the Wave Function: Some Strategies for Solving the Macro-object Problem. Synthese, 1-23.
NEY, Alyssa. Forthcoming. Separability, Locality, and Higher Dimensions in Quantum Mechanics. In DASGUPTA, Shamik, and WESLAKE, Brad, (eds.). Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.
NORSEN, Travis. 2010. The Theory of (Exclusively) Local Beables. Foundations of Physics 40, 1858-1884.
NORTH, Jill. 2013. The Structure of the Quantum World. In ALBERT, David Z., and NEY, Alyssa (eds.). The Wave Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 184–202.
PSILLOS, Stathis. 1994. A Philosophical Study of the Transition from the Caloric Theory of Heat to Thermodynamics: Resisting the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 25, 159-90.
PSILLOS, Stathis. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge.
STANDFORD, Kyle. 2003a. Pyrrhic Victories for Scientific Realism. Journal of Philosophy, 100, 553–572.
STANDFORD, Kyle. 2003b. No Refuge for Realism: Selective Confirmation and the History of Science. Philosophy of Science, 70, 913–925.
TUMULKA, Roderich. 2006. A Relativistic Version of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber Model. Journal of Statistical Physics, 125, 821-840.
WORRALL, John. 1989. Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds? Dialectica, 43, 99–124.
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2018-09-27
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Allori, Valia. 2018. « Scientific Realism and Primitive Ontology Or: The Pessimistic Induction and the Nature of the Wave Function ». Lato Sensu: Revue De La Société De Philosophie Des Sciences 5 (1):69-76. https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v5i1.10.
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Actes du congrès de 2016
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(c) Tous droits réservés Valia Allori 2018
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