The Charge of Anthropocentrism

Abstract

Epistemic accounts of quantum states such as quantum Bayesianism and the Rule Perspective are formulated in terms of notions such as ‘agent’, ‘epistemic situation’, and ‘state assignment’, which are neither themselves fundamental physical notions nor in any evident way reducible to such notions. In the present section I discuss an objection to the employment of such ‘anthropocentric notions’ (as I will call them), which claims that they are far too vague and too imprecise to be used in foundational accounts.