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Traces of Objectivity: Causality and Probabilities in Quantum Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Michel Bitbol
Michel Bitbol*
Affiliation:
CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
*
Michel Bitbol, CNRS, Archives Husserl, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 45, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France. Email: michel.bitbol@ens.fr
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Abstract

Unlike a widespread opinion, the constitution of objectivity (in Kant’s sense) does not require a strict, determinist, application of the category of causality to phenomena manifested in space-time. Some stochastic theories, using probabilities at their fundamental level, are just as able to constitute a domain of objects as determinist theories. In this paper, the conditions to be fulfilled for numbers to be considered as probabilities of intrinsic properties of an object of experience are displayed. These conditions, that synthesize George Boole’s relations and John Bell’s inequalities, are discussed in detail. Where they are not fulfilled, they make us suspect that it is impossible to achieve the detachment of an object from the instruments that give access to it.

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Articles
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Diogenes , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , November 2011, pp. 30 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2012

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