Fritz London and the measurement problem: a phenomenological approach

Continental Philosophy Review 54 (4):453-481 (2020)
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Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the possible relations between Fritz London’s account of the status of the observer in quantum physics and transcendental phenomenology. Firstly, I discuss Steven French’s interpretation of London’s thesis as a phenomenological account of the status of the observer, along with the objections Otávio Bueno has brought forward. Secondly, refusing in part both French’s and Bueno’s theses for several reasons, I propose another way of reading London’s thesis in the framework of transcendental phenomenology. Namely, I put London’s account of the observer against the backdrop of Husserl’s analyses of the objectifying acts and objectual constitution. Finally, I end this article with some criticisms of what seems to me the ontological indigency of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, to whose “spirit” London also belongs.

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References found in this work

Logical Investigations.Edmund Husserl - 1970 - London, England: Routledge. Edited by Dermot Moran.
Logical Investigations.Edmund Husserl & J. N. Findlay - 1972 - Journal of Philosophy 69 (13):384-398.
Edmund Husserl Briefwechsel: Die Brentanoschule.Edmund Husserl - 1994 - Boston: Springer. Edited by Elisabeth Schuhmann & Karl Schuhmann.

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