Cord Friebe Books

This book provides a thorough and up-to-date introduction to the philosophy of quantum physics. Although quantum theory is renowned for its spectacular empirical successes, controversial discussion about how it should be understood continue to rage today. In this volume, the authors provide an overview of its numerous philosophical challenges: Do quantum objects violate the principle of causality? Are particles of the same type indistinguishable and therefore not individual entities? Do quantum objects retain their identity over time? How does a compound quantum system relate to its parts? These questions are answered here within different interpretational approaches to quantum theory. Finally, moving to Quantum Field Theory, we find that the problem of non-locality is exacerbated . Philosophy of quantum physics is aimed at philosophers with an interest in physics, while also serving to familiarize physicists with many of the essential philosophicalquestions of their subject.

Relativity still challenges the philosophy of time: Although several sophisticated theories of temporal existence and persistence have been developed in the last decades, there is still an ongoing debate about how to apply the various concepts to spacetime theories and about whether those distinctions are even relevant at all for the ontology of spacetime. As it turns out to be the case, the ontologists of spacetime physics could broadly be arranged into two different camps: The first group is concerned with the apparently central question in the philosophy of (space-)time, i. e., whether the present is ontologically distinguished. The second deals with the problem of temporal change: Material objects persist through (space-)time and survive change – how do they manage to do so? Both debates have reached a high level of specialized, even „overspecialized“, discourse and need to be interrelated. Accordingly, the main purpose of this volume is to bring together „temporal existence“ and „persistence“ in spacetime.