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Since the Niels Bohr centenary of 1985 there has been an astonishing international surge of scholarly analyses of Bohr's philosophy. Now for the first time in <em>Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy Jan Faye and Henry Folse have brought together sixteen of today's leading authors who have helped mould this new round of discussions on Bohr's philosophy. In fifteen entirely new, previously unpublished essays we discover a surprising variety of the different facets of Bohr as the natural philosopher whose `framework of complementarity' shaped the final phase of the quantum revolution and influenced two generations of the century's leading physicists. There is much on which the authors included here agree; but there are also polar disagreements, which assure us that the philosophical questions revolving around Bohr's `new viewpoint' will continue to be a subject of scholarly interest and discussion for years to come. This collection will interest all serious students of history and philosophy of science, and foundations of physics.
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NIELS BOHR AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University ofPittsburgh SAHOTRA SARKAR, Dibner Institute M.l. T. SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of
the City University ofNew York
VOLUME 153
NIELS BOHR AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY Edited by JAN FAYE Carlsberg Foundat ion, Copenha gen , Denmark and HENRY J. FOLSE Department ofPhilosoph y, Loyola University , New Orleans, U. S. A.
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Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Niels Bohr and contemporary phIlosophy / edited by Jan Faye and Henry J. Folse. p. cm . -- (Boston studIes in the phi losophy of scIence; v. 153) Includes bIblIographIcal references and index. 1. Physlcs--Phl10sophy. 2 . PhIlosophy. Modern. I . Faye. Jan . II. Folse. Henry J .• 1945III. Series. [DNLM : 1. Bohr. Niels Henrik DaVid. 1885-1962--Views on phIlosophy.] aC16.B65N493 1993 530' .01--dc20 DLC for Library of Congress 93-24825 ISBN 978-90-481-4299-6 ISBN 978-94-015-8106-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8106-6
Print ed on acid-free paper All Right s Reserved © 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1994. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1994 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechancial , including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface Introduction
xiii
MARA BELLER & ARTHUR FINE / Bohr's Response to EPR 1. EPR and Bohr's EPR 2. Incompleteness and Inconsistency 3. Simultaneous Position and Momentum in EPR 4. Bohr's Concept of Disturbance: EPR and Before 5. Ambiguity and Definition 6. Positivism and Its Puzzles 7. Locality and Separability 8. Concluding Remarks
I 2 3 6 10 16 18 23 27
Xl
CATHERINE CHEVALLEY / Niels Bohr's Words and the Atlantis of Kantianism 1. Introduction 2. Anschauung and Symbol- In Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics 3. Anschauung and Symbol - The Philosophical Background 4. Conclusions 4.1. Original Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics 4.2. Bohr's Conception of Language 4.3. Changing Perspectives
35 43 50 50 51 53
JAMES T. CUSHING / A Bohmian Response to Bohr's Complementarity 1. Introduction 2. The Project of "Clarifying" Bohr's Views 3. Bohr's Complementarity 4. Bohmian Mechani