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177This is an introduction to wave function realism for a compendium on the philosophy of quantum mechanics that will be edited and translated into Portuguese by Raoni Arroyo, entitled Compêndio de Filosofia da Física Quântica. This essay presents the history of wave function realism, its various interpretations, the main arguments that are given for the position, and the main objections that have been raised to it.
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78Three arguments for wave function realismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4): 1-18. 2023.Wave function realism is an interpretative framework for quantum theories which recommends taking the central ontology of these theories to consist of the quantum wave function, understood as a field on a high-dimensional space. This paper presents and evaluates three standard arguments for wave function realism, and clarifies the sort of ontological framework these arguments support.
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598The Argument from Locality for Many Worlds Quantum MechanicsJournal of Philosophy. forthcoming.One motivation for preferring the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics over realist rivals, such as collapse and hidden variables theories, is that the interpretation is able to preserve locality (in the sense of no action at a distance) in a way these other theories cannot. The primary goal of this paper is to make this argument for the many worlds interpretation precise, in a way that does not rely on controversial assumptions about the metaphysics of many worlds.
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173Overdetermination and Causal Closure: A Defense of the Causal Argument for PhysicalismProtoSociology 39 35-50. 2022.Among the arguments that have been proposed for physicalism, the “causal argument” is widely taken to be the most compelling. Justin Tiehen (2015) has raised an interesting objection to this argument that takes the form of a dilemma. Tiehen’s ultimate conclusion is that at best, the causal argument is circular and so its premises cannot provide support for its conclusion, physicalism. The aim of the present paper is to respond to Tiehen’s objection in order to provide a defense of the causal arg…Read more
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90Review of Metaphysical Emergence by Jessica Wilson (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2022.
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Separability, locality, and higher dimensions in quantum mechanicsIn Shamik Dasgupta, Brad Weslake & Ravit Dotan (eds.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science, Routledge. 2020.
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86Panpsychism and the Limits of Physical ScienceJournal of Consciousness Studies 28 (9-10): 181-193. 2021.
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34Review of John Heil, The Universe As We Find It (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 881-886. 2014.
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725The Fundamentality of Physics: Completeness or MaximalityOxford Studies in Metaphysics 12. 2021.There is a standard way of interpreting physicalism. This is as a completeness thesis of some kind. Completeness physicalists believe there is or in principle could be some future physics that provides a complete explanatory or ontological basis for our universe. And this provides a sense in which physics is special among the sciences, the sense in which it is fundamental. This paper contrasts this standard completeness physicalism with what is a more plausible maximality physicalism. Maximality…Read more
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945From Quantum Entanglement to Spatiotemporal DistanceIn Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan & Nick Huggett (eds.), Philosophy Beyond Spacetime: Implications From Quantum Gravity, Oxford University Press. 2021.Within the field of quantum gravity, there is an influential research program developing the connection between quantum entanglement and spatiotemporal distance. Quantum information theory gives us highly refined tools for quantifying quantum entanglement such as the entanglement entropy. Through a series of well-confirmed results, it has been shown how these facts about the entanglement entropy of component systems may be connected to facts about spatiotemporal distance. Physicists are seeing t…Read more
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70The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum PhysicsOxford University Press. 2021."What are the ontological implications of quantum theories, that is, what do they tell us about the fundamental objects that make up our world? How should quantum theories make us reevaluate our classical conceptions of the basic constitution of material objects and ourselves? Is there fundamental quantum nonlocality? This book articulates several rival approaches to answering these questions, ultimately defending the wave function realist approach. It is a way of interpreting quantum theories s…Read more
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278The Politics of FundamentalityIn Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster & Zeeya Merali (eds.), What is Fundamental?, Springer Verlag. pp. 27-36. 2019.What justifies the allocation of funding to research in physics when many would argue research in the life and social sciences may have more immediate impact in transforming our world for the better? Many of the justifications for such spending depend on the claim that physics enjoys a kind of special status vis-a-vis the other sciences, that physics or at least some branches of physics exhibit a form of fundamentality. The goal of this paper is to articulate a conception of fundamentality that …Read more
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90On Phenomenal Functionalism about the Properties of Virtual and Non-virtual ObjectsDisputatio 11 (55): 399-410. 2019.According to phenomenal functionalism, whether some object or event has a given property is determined by the kinds of sensory experiences such objects or events typically cause in normal perceivers in normal viewing conditions. This paper challenges this position and, more specifically, David Chalmers’s use of it in arguing for what he calls virtual realism.
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583Are the Questions of Metaphysics More Fundamental Than Those of Science?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3): 695-715. 2019.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
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7ReductionismInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Reductionists are those who take one theory or phenomenon to be reducible to some other theory or phenomenon. For example, a reductionist regarding mathematics might take any given mathematical theory to be reducible to logic or set theory. Or, a reductionist about biological entities like cells might take such entities to be reducible to collections of physico-chemical entities like atoms and molecules. The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of…Read more
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168The Wave Function: Essays in the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2013.This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? What is the nature of the fundamental space (or space-time manifold) of quantum mechanics?
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633Neo-positivist metaphysicsPhilosophical Studies 160 (1): 53-78. 2012.Some philosophers argue that many contemporary debates in metaphysics are “illegitimate,” “shallow,” or “trivial,” and that “contemporary analytic metaphysics, a professional activity engaged in by some extremely intelligent and morally serious people, fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pursuit of objective truth, and should be discontinued” (Ladyman and Ross, Every thing must go: Metaphysics naturalized , 2007 ). Many of these critics are explicit about their sympathies with Rudolf Car…Read more
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4Are There Fundamental Intrinsic Properties?In Allan Hazlett (ed.), New Waves in Metaphysics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 219--39. 2010.
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2842Grounding in the Philosophy of Mind: A DefenseIn Ken Aizawa & Carl Gillett (eds.), Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground, Palgrave-macmillan. 2016.
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118The causal contribution of mental eventsIn Simone Gozzano & Christopher S. Hill (eds.), New Perspectives on Type Identity: The Mental and the Physical, Cambridge University Press. pp. 230. 2012.
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248Fundamental physical ontologies and the constraint of empirical coherence: a defense of wave function realismSynthese 192 (10): 3105-3124. 2015.This paper defends wave function realism against the charge that the view is empirically incoherent because our evidence for quantum theory involves facts about objects in three-dimensional space or space-time . It also criticizes previous attempts to defend wave function realism against this charge by claiming that the wave function is capable of grounding local beables as elements of a derivative ontology
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101Review of Steven French * The Structure of the World (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014. 2014.
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271This is a commentary on Mathias Frisch's book Causal Reasoning in Physics (Cambridge 2014). This commentary was presented at the 2016 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in a session sponsored by the Society for the Metaphysics of Science.
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491Physicalism as an attitudePhilosophical Studies 138 (1). 2008.It is widely noted that physicalism, taken as the doctrine that the world contains just what physics says it contains, faces a dilemma which, some like Tim Crane and D.H. Mellor have argued, shows that “physicalism is the wrong answer to an essentially trivial question”. I argue that both problematic horns of this dilemma drop out if one takes physicalism not to be a doctrine of the kind that might be true, false, or trivial, but instead an attitude or oath one takes to formulate one’s ontology …Read more
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142Convergence on the problem of mental causation: Shoemaker's strategy for (nonreductive?) PhysicalistsPhilosophical Issues 20 (1): 438-445. 2010.
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427Microphysical Causation and the Case for PhysicalismAnalytic Philosophy 57 (1): 141-164. 2016.Physicalism is sometimes portrayed by its critics as a dogma, but there is an empirical argument for the position, one based on the accumulation of diverse microphysical causal explanations in physics, chemistry, and physiology. The canonical statement of this argument was presented in 2001 by David Papineau. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate a tension that arises between this way of understanding the empirical case for physicalism and a view that is becoming practically a received positi…Read more
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186Tim Maudlin * The Metaphysics Within Physics (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (3): 683-689. 2011.
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122John Heil the universe as we find it (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 881-886. 2014.
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1523*A shortened version of this paper will appear in Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science, Dasgupta and Weslake, eds. Routledge.* This paper describes the case that can be made for a high-dimensional ontology in quantum mechanics based on the virtues of avoiding both nonseparability and non locality.
Davis, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Physical Science |