The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access published online on September 9, 2005
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi:10.1093/bjps/axi135
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1 Department of Philosophy, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. ‘A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics’ (Putnam [1965]) explained why the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a philosophical problem in detail, but with only the necessary minimum of technicalities, in the hope of making the difficulties intelligible to as wide an audience as possible. When I wrote it, I had not seen Bell ([1964]), nor (of course) had I seen Ghirardi et al. ([1986]). And I did not discuss the ‘Many Worlds’ interpretation. For all these reasons, I have decided to make a similar attempt forty years later, taking account of additional interpretations and of our knowledge concerning non-locality. (The Quantum Logical interpretation proposed in Putnam [1968] is not considered in the present paper, however, because Putnam [1994b] concluded that it was unworkable.) Rather than advocate a particular interpretation, this paper classifies the possible kinds of interpretation, subject only to the constraints of a very broadly construed scientific realism. Section 7 does, however, argue that two sorts of interpretation--ones according to which a ‘collapse’ is brought about by the measurement (e.g. the traditional ‘Copenhagen’ interpretation), and the Many Worlds interpretation or interpretations--should be ruled out. The concluding section suggests some possible morals of a cosmological character. 1 Background 2 Scientific realism is the premise of my discussion 3 What ‘quantum mechanics’ says--and some problems 4 Other interpretations of quantum mechanics 5 The problem of Einstein's bed 6 Classification of the possible kinds of interpretation 7 Which interpretations I think we can rule out 8 The ‘moral’ of this discussion
Article
A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (Again)*
Hilary Putnam, E-mail: hputnam{at}fas.harvard.edu
Abstract
* This paper originated as a keynote address to the Annual Conference of the Israel Association for History and Philosophy of Science at the Van Leer Foundation in Jerusalem on 17 March 2004.
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