Talk: Michael Cuffaro (MCMP)

Title:

Kantianism with a Human Face: Grete Hermann's Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract:

Grete Hermann was a philosopher-mathematician who productively and mutually beneficially interacted with the founders of quantum mechanics in the early period of that theory's elaboration. Hermann was a neo-Kantian philosopher. At the heart of Kant's critical philosophy lay the question of the conditions under which we can be said to know something objectively, a question Hermann found to be particularly pressing in quantum mechanics. In my talk I will discuss how, beginning from her own particular understanding of Kant's critical philosophy, Hermann was led to conclude that quantum mechanics shows us that physical knowledge is fundamentally split; that the objects of quantum mechanics are only objects from a particular perspective and in the context of a particular physical interaction. It will be seen how Hermann's solution to the problem of objectivity in quantum mechanics is a natural one from the point of view of her particular brand of neo-Kantianism, even though it disagrees with those offered by more orthodox versions of Kantian doctrine.