•  5
    Quantum Decoherence in a Pragmatist View: Dispelling Feynman’s Mystery (review)
    Foundations of Physics 42 (12): 1534-1555. 2012.
    The quantum theory of decoherence plays an important role in a pragmatist interpretation of quantum theory. It governs the descriptive content of claims about values of physical magnitudes and offers advice on when to use quantum probabilities as a guide to their truth. The content of a claim is to be understood in terms of its role in inferences. This promises a better treatment of meaning than that offered by Bohr. Quantum theory models physical systems with no mention of measurement: it is de…Read more
  •  8
    A note on Van Fraassen's modal interpretation of quantum mechanics
    Philosophy of Science 63 (1): 91-104. 1996.
    Although there has been some discussion in the literature of Bas van Fraassen's modal interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, it has for the most part been concentrated on difficulties that van Fraassen's viewpoint shares with those of some other authors, including Kochen, Dieks, and Healey. van Fraassen's approach has, however, some problems of its own; in this note we want to focus on what seems to us to be one of the most serious of these. The difficulty concerns immediately repeated non-disturb…Read more
  •  26
    Observation and Quantum Objectivity
    Philosophy of Science 80 (3): 434-453. 2013.
    The paradox of Wigner’s friend challenges the objectivity of quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by judicious appeal to decoherence. Quantum theory provides situated agents with resources for predicting and explaining what happens in the physical world—not conscious observations of it. Even in bizarre Wigner’s friend scenarios, differently situated agents agree on the objective content of physical magnitude statements while, normally, quantum Darwinism permits age…Read more