Related papers: On the possibility of a realist ontological commit…
Authoritative appraisals qualified this book as an axiomatic theory. However, being its essential content no more than an analogy, its theoretical organization cannot be an axiomatic one. In fact, in the first edition Dirac declares to…
Dualities in physics have challenged traditional forms of scientific realism by undermining the idea that theories describe a unique underlying ontology. In this paper, we develop a new perspective on scientific realism that responds to…
We begin by discussing ``What exists?'', i.e. ontology, in Classical Physics which provided a description of physical phenomena at the macroscopic level. The microworld however necessitates a introduction of Quantum ideas for its…
Three problems stand in the way of deriving classical theories from quantum mechanics: those of realist interpretation, of classical properties and of quantum measurement. Recently, we have identified some tacit assumptions that lie at the…
The standard presentation of the principles of quantum mechanics is critically reviewed both from the experimental/operational point and with respect to the request of mathematical consistency and logical economy. A simpler and more…
Quantum mechanics under the Copenhagen interpretation is one of the most experimentally well verified formalisms. However, it is known that the interpretation makes explicit reference to external observation or "measurement." One says that…
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is investigated from a philosophical point of view. It is justified the opinion that the philosophical attitude the Copenhagen interpretation is based on is in principle inevitable for a real…
Bohmian mechanics grounds the predictions of quantum mechanics in precise dynamical laws for a primitive ontology of point particles. In an appraisal of the de-Broglie-Bohm theory, the paper discusses the crucial epistemological and…
In this paper, we investigate similarities and differences between the main neo-Copenhagen (or "epistemic-pragmatist") interpretations of quantum mechanics, here identified as those defined by the rejection of an ontological nature of the…
The present study attempts to provide a consistent and coherent account of what the world could be like, given the conceptual framework and results of contemporary quantum theory. It is suggested that standard quantum mechanics can, and…
The list of basic axioms of quantum mechanics as it was formulated by von Neumann includes only the mathematical formalism of the Hilbert space and its statistical interpretation. We point out that such an approach is too general to be…
The interpretation of quantum mechanics has been a problem since its founding days. A large contribution to the discussion of possible interpretations of quantum mechanics is given by the so-called impossibility proofs for hidden variable…
The (consistent or decoherent) histories interpretation provides a consistent realistic ontology for quantum mechanics, based on two main ideas. First, a logic (system of reasoning) is employed which is compatible with the Hilbert-space…
Studying the extent to which realism is compatible with quantum mechanics teaches us something about the quantum mechanical universe, regardless of the validity of such realistic assumptions. It has also recently been appreciated that these…
The paper shows how the Bohmian approach to quantum physics can be applied to develop a clear and coherent ontology of non-perturbative quantum gravity. We suggest retaining discrete objects as the primitive ontology also when it comes to a…
It is argued that the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, founded ontologically on the concept of probability, may be questionable in view of the fact that within Probability Theory itself the ontological status of the concept…
In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any…
It is generally accepted that quantum mechanics entails a revision of the classical propositional calculus as a consequence of its physical content. However, the universal claim according to which a new quantum logic is indispensable in…
In a previous preprint (quant-ph/0012122) we introduced a ``contextual objectivity" formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). A central feature of this approach is to define the quantum state in physical rather than in mathematical terms, in…
We provide an introduction to the theory of quantum measurements that is centered on the pivotal role played by John von Neumann's model. This introduction is accessible to students and researchers from outside the field of foundations of…