THE (META)PHYSICS OF SCIENCE: THE CASE OF NON-RELATIVISTIC QUANTUM MECHANICS

• Autor(a) principal: Arroyo, Raoni
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Arenhart, Jonas R. Becker
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Kriterion (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/kriterion/article/view/27049
• topic: Metametafísica; Metafísica e ontologia; Mecânica quântica; Metafísica da ciência; Metametaphysics; Metaphysics and ontology; Quantum mechanics; Metaphysics of science; Métamétaphysique; Métaphysique et ontologie; Mécanique quantique; Metametafisica; Metafisica e ontologia; Meccanica quantistica

Traditionally, being a realist about something meansbelieving in the independent existence of that something. In this line of thought,a scientific realist is someone who believes in the objective existence of theentities postulated by our best scientific theories. In metaphysical terms, whatdoes that mean? In ontological terms, i.e., in terms of what exists, scientificrealism can be understood as involving the adoption of a scientifically informedontology. But according to some philosophers, a realistic attitude must gobeyond ontology. The way in which this requirement has been understoodinvolves providing a metaphysics for the entities postulated by science, thatis, answering questions about the nature of what ontology admits to exist. Wediscuss how two fashionable approaches face the challenge of providing ametaphysics for science: a form of naturalism and the Viking/Toolbox approach.Finally, we present a third way, which adopts the best of both approaches: themeta-Popperian method, which focuses on discarding the wrong alternatives,or better saying, the metaphysical profiles incompatible with certain theories.We present the meta-Popperian method, a metametaphysical method capable ofobjectively assessing which metaphysical profiles are incompatible with certain scientific theories. For this, we will use quantum mechanics as a case study,presenting some previously obtained results. As our focus is on methodologicalquestions about the relationship between metaphysics and science; with thismethod, we can see how science can be used to avoid error in metaphysicalissues. In our opinion, this would be a way to develop a productive relationshipbetween science and metaphysics.