Abstract
In this article I intend to draw the reader’s attention to a particular feature of Niels Bohr’s philosophy which has been overlooked in the discussion of his views concerning the reality of ‘the quantum world’. I am thinking of Bohr’s rejection of a ‘God’s-Eye View’ and of transcendental views in general. I shall not comment upon problems concerning locality, separability or other current issues. Yet, I do hope that the following may help some to a more clear understanding of Bohr’s views concerning reality and description.
Portions of this article have appeared previously in Semiotica 94 (1/2), and are here republished with the permission of its publisher, Mouton de Gruyter.
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Notes
See Bohr’s correspondence with Max Delbrück: BSC: Delbrück to Bohr June 30, 1959, Bohr to Delbürck July 25, 1959, Delbürck to Bohr August 3, 1959 and Bohr to Delbrück November 19, 1959, and Interview with Fru B. Schultz, conducted by Aage Petersen and Paul Forman, May 17, 1963, pp. 14–15. (In the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen).
“The difficulties pertaining to a personified providence, not only with respect to the limited character of the use of words such as omniscience and all-loving, but intimately connected w it h the impossibility of including a last subject in a scientific description where we must always have a dividing line between subj. and obj. in order to define the communications (chinese wisdom)”. (MSS: 22, ‘Steno-Forelæsning i Medicinsk Selskab’, 20 February 1957).
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Favrholdt, D. (1994). Niels Bohr and Realism. In: Faye, J., Folse, H.J. (eds) Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 153. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8106-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8106-6_4
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