New interpretations of quantum mechanics and the theory of knowledge

Roland Omnès

pp. 1-11

in: Werner Depauli Schimanovich, Eckehart Köhler, Friedrich Stadler (eds), The foundational debate, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

The debate about foundations we are trying to pursue together has two levels, as far as I understand it. The basic one is a theory of knowledge specifying how the "world" we are investigating is defined. Then comes a philosophy of knowledge investigating and exploiting this definition. Both of them can be considered as applying to a specific domain of knowledge, as for instance physics, mathematics or philosophy, though philosophy offers two different aspects when it is either taken as a specific subject by itself or as a synthesis of various special fields, which may be a metaconstruction over physics, mathematics and whatever else. I wish to discuss here briefly three different theories of knowledge. They refer primarily to physics, though one should not forget that they may imply wider extensions to philosophy. Two of these theories are well known and they have been proposed respectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niels Bohr. The third one follows from some recent developments in the interpretation of quantum mechanics and it will be our main topic.

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig