Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-qxsvm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-30T14:41:40.635Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Weak Discernibility and Relations between Quanta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Joshua Norton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some authors (Muller and Saunders, Huggett and Norton) have attempted to defend Leibniz’s Identity of Indiscernibles through weak discernibility. The idea is that if there is a symmetric, nonreflexive physical relation that holds between two particles, then those particles cannot be identical. In this article I focus only on Muller and Saunders’s account and argue that the means by which they achieve weak discernibility is not through a quantum mechanical observable but an alternate mathematical construction that is both unorthodox and incomplete.

Type
Quantum Physics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1188 - 1199
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Nick Huggett, Christian Wüthrich, Jeremy Butterfield, Adam Caulton, Fred Muller, Simon Saunders, as well as the varied participants at the 2014 Philosophy of Science Association conference for their comments on this article or its earlier instantiations.

References

French, S., and Redhead, M.. 1988. “Quantum Physics and the Identity of Indiscernibles.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (2): 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huggett, N., and Norton, J.. 2014. “Weak Discernibility for Quanta, the Right Way.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (1): 39–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibniz, G. 1686/1686. The Rationalists: Descartes: Discourse on Method and Meditations; Spinoza: Ethics; Leibniz: Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Mermin, D. 1998. “What Is Quantum Mechanics Trying to Tell Us?” American Journal of Physics 66:753–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mugnai, M. 1992. Leibniz’ Theory of Relations. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Muller, F., and Saunders, S.. 2008. “Discerning Fermions.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (3): 499–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. 1976. “Grades of Discriminability.” Journal of Philosophy 73 (5): 113–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saunders, S. 2003. “Physics and Leibniz’s Principles.” In Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections, 289–307. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar