The Epistemological Crisis of Quantum Theory

Philosophical Implications of the Development of the New Physics

Abstract

We can easily verify that the development of the main theories of knowledge in the modern period of Western philosophy was closely related to the status quo of the development of mathematics and science in a general way. This characteristic is especially evident in the Kantian project of providing the philosophical basis to explain the possibility of (Euclidean) geometry and Newtonian physics, which Kant based on principles which he considered sine qua non conditions of human knowledge. However, the physics that have developed in the first half of the 20th century presented situations in which physicists themselves had to question themselves about the epistemological problems involved in the description, interpretation, and ultimately, in the communication of observed phenomena, so that some concepts dear to traditional epistemology proved to be either invalid or inefficient to explain the possibility of objective knowledge in the face of this new set of phenomena. Therefore, we would like to briefly present how this contrast between traditional epistemology and quantum theory occurs, as well as how physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg dealt with the new situation that was presented.