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Holism vs. particularism: A lesson from classical and quantum physics

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Summary

The present essay aims at broadening the recent discussion on the issue of holism vs. particularism in quantum physics. I begin with a clarification of the relation between the holism/particularism debate and the discussion of supervenience relation. I then defend particularism in physics (including quantum physics) by considering a new classification of properties of physical systems. With such a classification, the results in the Bell theorem are shown to violate spatial separability but not physical particularism.

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Liu, C. Holism vs. particularism: A lesson from classical and quantum physics. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 27, 267–279 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02262617

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