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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1988 39(2):233-246; doi:10.1093/bjps/39.2.233
© 1988 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Quantum Physics and the Identity of Indiscernibles*

STEVEN FRENCH1 and MICHAEL REDHEAD {dagger}2

1Department of Philosophy, and Centre of Logic, Epistemology and History of Science, Universidade Estadual de Campinas Campinas, S. P. Brasil
2History and Philosophy of Science King's College London (KQC) England

{dagger}Present address; Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH

This paper is concerned with the question of whether atomic particles of the same species, i. e. with the same intrinsic state-independent properties of mass, spin, electric charge, etc, violate the Leibnizian Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, in the sense that, while there is more than one of them, their state-dependent properties may also all be the same. The answer depends on what exactly the state-dependent properties of atomic particles are taken to be. On the plausible interpretation that these should comprise all monadic and relational properties that can be expressed in terms of physical magnitudes associated with self-adjoint operators that can be defined for the individual particles, then the weakest form of the Principle is shown to be violated for bosons, fermions and higher-order paraparticles, treated in first quantization

*Some of the arguments inn this paper appeared in a thesis submited by one of us (S.F.) In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the PhD degree of the University of London, in 1984. entitled 'Identity and ‘Individuality in Classical and Quantum Physics’


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