-
Value-definiteness and Contextualism: Cut and Paste with Hilbert SpacePSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992 (1): 91-103. 1992.My topics are two theses about quantum mechanics that are widely doubted but curiously tempting: value-definiteness and contextualism. Value-definiteness holds that every observable has a definite value; contextualism follows from value-definiteness, and claims that one Hermitian operator can represent many observables. In fact, contextualism is my deeper interest Although it is not a view with an army of defenders, it has a long history of discussion in the literature. (See, for example, Belinf…Read more
-
8Jarrett’s Locality Condition and Causal ParadoxPSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 (1): 318-325. 1988.In this paper, I want to present a family of results that may seem to add up to a new proof of the impossibility of hidden variables. In fact, I very much doubt that that’s really what really emerges, but I think the results are nonetheless interesting because they help to sharpen the discussion of Jon Jarrett’s very useful decompostion theorem, in particular, of the condition he calls locality. Jarrett (1984) and Ballentine and Jarrett (1987) have suggested that the so-called condition of local…Read more
-
4Book Reviews (review)History and Philosophy of Logic 7 (1): 77-117. 1986.MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE LOGICSIMON OF FAVERSHAM, Quaestiones super Libro Elenchorum. Text in Latin with introduction and notes in English, edited by Sten Ebbesen, Thomas Izbicki, John Longeway, Francesco del Punta, Eileen Serene and Eleonore Stump. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984. xiv + 270 pp. $3 1.OO.JACOPO ZABARELLA, De methodis libri quatuor; Liber de regressu. Edited by Cesare Vasoli. Bologna: Editrice CLUEB, 1985. xxxviii+ 193 pp. Lire 57,000.EDITIONSG. W. F. HEGE…Read more
-
23Particles and Paradoxes: The Limits of Quantum Logic. Peter GibbinsPhilosophy of Science 56 (4): 712-714. 1989.
-
30Is Bananaworld nonlocal?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 72 301-309. 2020.
-
23Review Essay: On the Plurality of Worlds (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (2): 333. 1988.
-
Quantum Mechanics, Logic and RealityDissertation, The University of Western Ontario (Canada). 1978.
-
37Mark Johnston , Saving God: Religion after Idolatry . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 32 (4): 285-287. 2012.
-
81A loose and separate certainty: Caves, Fuchs and Schack on quantum probability oneStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 42 (3): 158-166. 2011.
-
40Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism: A Prolegomenon to the Philosophy of Quantum MechanicsPhilosophical Review 99 (2): 275. 1987.This book concentrates on research done during the last twenty years on the philosophy of quantum mechanics. In particular, the author focuses on three major issues: whether quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory, whether it is non-local, and whether it can be interpreted realistically. Much of the book is concerned with distinguishing various senses in which these questions can be taken, and assessing the bewildering variety of answers philosophers and physicists have given up to now. The bo…Read more
-
21Value-Definiteness and Contextualism: Cut and Paste with Hilbert SpacePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992. 1992.I begin with an appeal to the GHZ/Mermin state to illustrate the allure of contextualism and value-definiteness. I then point out that standard contextualism, with its special status for non-degenerate operators, faces some embarrassing questions. Further, there is an alternative that apparently does not have the same problems. A modest re-pasting of Hilbert space makes the honors almost even between these two varieties. The paper closes with some reflections on the peculiarities of contextualis…Read more
-
174Quantum logic, realism, and value definitenessPhilosophy of Science 50 (4): 578-602. 1983.One of the most interesting programs in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the realist quantum logic approach associated with Putnam, Bub, Demopoulos and Friedman (and which is the focus of my own research.) I believe that realist quantum logic is our best hope for making sense of quantum mechanics, but I have come to suspect that the usual version may not be the correct one. In this paper, I would like to say why and to propose an alternative
-
40Bub on quantum logic and continuous geometryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (3): 313-325. 1985.
-
41Jarrett's Locality Condition and Causal ParadoxPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988. 1988.Jarrett (1984) and Ballentine and Jarrett (1987) have argued that violations of Jarrett's locality condition are strictly forbidden by the theory of relativity. In Ballentine and Jarrett, this claim is supported by an appeal to the fact that superluminal signalling gives rise to causal paradoxes. In this paper, it is argued that if violations of locality are permitted, certain puzzles indeed arise. The result takes the form of a set of apparent "no go" theorems. However, it is argued that the re…Read more
-
117Contextuality and Nonlocality in 'No Signaling' TheoriesFoundations of Physics 39 (7): 690-711. 2009.We define a family of ‘no signaling’ bipartite boxes with arbitrary inputs and binary outputs, and with a range of marginal probabilities. The defining correlations are motivated by the Klyachko version of the Kochen-Specker theorem, so we call these boxes Kochen-Specker-Klyachko boxes or, briefly, KS-boxes. The marginals cover a variety of cases, from those that can be simulated classically to the superquantum correlations that saturate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, when the KS-box…Read more
-
56On local realism and commutativityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (4): 863-878. 2007.
-
121Correlations, Contextuality and Quantum LogicJournal of Philosophical Logic 42 (3): 483-499. 2013.Quantum theory is a probabilistic theory that embodies notoriously striking correlations, stronger than any that classical theories allow but not as strong as those of hypothetical ‘super-quantum’ theories. This raises the question ‘Why the quantum?’—whether there is a handful of principles that account for the character of quantum probability. We ask what quantum-logical notions correspond to this investigation. This project isn’t meant to compete with the many beautiful results that informatio…Read more
-
67Quantum logic and the luders rulePhilosophy of Science 49 (3): 422-436. 1982.In a recent paper, Michael Friedman and Hilary Putnam argued that the Luders rule is ad hoc from the point of view of the Copenhagen interpretation but that it receives a natural explanation within realist quantum logic as a probability conditionalization rule. Geoffrey Hellman maintains that quantum logic cannot give a non-circular explanation of the rule, while Jeffrey Bub argues that the rule is not ad hoc within the Copenhagen interpretation. As I see it, all four are wrong. Given that there…Read more
-
118Local Realism and Conditional ProbabilityFoundations of Physics 36 (4): 585-601. 2006.Emilio Santos has argued (Santos, Studies in History and Philosophy of Physics http: //arxiv-org/abs/quant-ph/0410193) that to date, no experiment has provided a loophole-free refutation of Bell’s inequalities. He believes that this provides strong evidence for the principle of local realism, and argues that we should reject this principle only if we have extremely strong evidence. However, recent work by Malley and Fine (Non-commuting observables and local realism, http: //arxiv-org/abs/quant-p…Read more
-
13Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Science, Edited by William Shea. Science History Publications . 215 pages (review)Dialogue 18 (3): 421-425. 1979.
College Park, Maryland, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Physical Science |