Alice Returns From Wonderland
Alice Returns From Wonderland

Ontological Frameworks for Explanation from Contemporary Quantum Theories

Author(s): Mladen Domazet, Mladen Domazet
Subject(s): Philosophy, Philosophical Traditions, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Special Branches of Philosophy, Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Published by: KruZak
Keywords: Conceptual framework; realism; ontology; metaphysics; constructive approach; Niels Bohr; atomism; Albert Einstein; Rene Descartes; explanation; extension; identity; primary qualities
Summary/Abstract: Alice returns from Wonderland discusses scientific explanation and its importance for scientific knowledge. The classical ideal of coherence and completeness of physics was shaken in the early 20th century with the appearance of quantum mechanics, and this opened the floodgates of skepticism about the explanatory potential of science. Through extensive examination of principle and constructive approaches to methodology and explanation in quantum theory, Domazet discusses realist and antirealist approaches to scientific enterprise as a whole. The need for modification of the everyday conceptual framework through modification of some foundational units of the realist material ontology arises. The book argues for the reintroduction of the metaphysical component of science; to base explanations of empirical phenomena on ontological commitments. Despite the unfamiliar phenomena like quantum teleportation, imaginary Alice finds a way to hold on to familiar macroscopic objects, as one of many instances of durable generalized objects subjected not only to spatio-temporal constrictions but also to ontologically primitive fundamental laws of temporal evolution.

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