Article ID: CBB001024225

The Kantian Framework of Complementarity (2010)

unapi

A growing number of commentators have, in recent years, noted the important affinities in the views of Immanuel Kant and Niels Bohr. While these commentators are correct, the picture they present of the connections between Bohr and Kant is painted in broad strokes; it is open to the criticism that these affinities are merely superficial. In this essay, I provide a closer, structural, analysis of both Bohr's and Kant's views that makes these connections more explicit. In particular, I demonstrate the similarities between Bohr's argument, on the one hand, that neither the wave nor the particle description of atomic phenomena pick out an object in the ordinary sense of the word, and Kant's requirement, on the other hand, that both `mathematical' (having to do with magnitude) and `dynamical' (having to do with an object's interaction with other objects) principles must be applicable to appearances in order for us to determine them as objects of experience. I argue that Bohr's `complementarity interpretation' of quantum mechanics, which views atomic objects as idealizations, and which licenses the repeal of the principle of causality for the domain of atomic physics, is perfectly compatible with, and indeed follows naturally from a broadly Kantian epistemological framework.

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Description A structural analysis of Bohr's and Kant's views, showing their similarities.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001024225/

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Authors & Contributors
Camilleri, Kristian
Adrien Vila Valls
Philippe Stamenkovic
Greco, Pietro
Kunihisa Morita
D'Agostino, Salvo
Concepts
Quantum mechanics
Physics
Philosophy of science
Complementarity
Theoretical physics
Causality
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
21st century
19th century
Places
France
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