Abstract
Part II on the ontology of quantum mechanics follows Part I both logically and, in our case, chronologically. It follows logically since it is our aim to disentangle the concepts of reality and being implicit in various accounts of scientific knowing; it follows chronologically since in Heisenberg’s case his explicit ontology was not formulated before 1950, that is to say, not until twenty-five years after the publication of quantum mechanics1.
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References
A. Einstein, Essays in Science (New York: Philos. Libr., 1934).
See the interesting discussion of Eddington and others by E. C. Mascall in Christian Theology and Natural Science (London: Longmans, 1956), chap. III.
A very penetrating critique of instrumentalism from inside the school of logical empiricism has been made by the group associated with the Minnesota Centre for the Philosophy of Science, as for example, Grover Maxwell’s “The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. III, ed. by H. Feigl and G. Maxwell (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minn., 1962), pp. 3–27; P. K. Feyerabend, “Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism”, ibid., pp. 28-97; also by the same author, “An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience”, Proc. Aristot. Soc., lviii (1958), pp. 144-170. We have already criticised the neglect of certain distinctions which we believe to be fundamental for an adequate realistic theory of science, e. g., properties-for-us vs. properties-for-things, observable symbol vs. property symbolised etc. Cf. supra, chap. iv.
G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by J. B. Baillie (London: Allen and Unwin, 1961), p. 102 in Preface.
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© 1965 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Heelan, P.A. (1965). Various Theories of Reality in Physics. In: Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0831-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0831-5_7
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