Complementarity and our knowledge of nature

Henry J. Folse

pp. 51-66

in: Marc E. Carvallo (ed), Nature, cognition and system II, Berlin, Springer, 1992

Abstract

Bohr's framework of complementarity should be understood as a realist interpretation of quantum physics, but in order to defend such a reading of Bohr, the epistemic goal of representationalism as applied to atomic objects must be abandoned. This implies that complementarity rejects the meta-epistemic presuppositions of the Cartesian spectator epistemology, but if this epistemological lesson is accepted, then it remains possible to have knowledge about the atomic objects which in interacting with observing systems produce the atomic phenomena that confirm the quantum theoretical account of the atomic domain.