000 01573cam a2200241 4500500
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041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aVila Valls, Adrien
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aBetween Causalism and Positivism: The Philosophical Reception of Quantum Mechanics by French Theorists during the Interwar Period
260 _c2016.
500 _a90
520 _aMany authors have claimed that the prevalence of a rationalist and positivist philosophy among French physicists was an obstacle in the reception of quantum mechanics in France. Without challenging the basic tenet of this thesis, the present study tends to qualify it. An overview of the epistemological reception of quantum mechanics among the main theoretical physicists of the 30s and 40s shows that these theorists negotiated a reading of quantum mechanics that enabled them to maintain their philosophical outlook. In this perspective, what I call a « crypto-mechanist » interpretation of the measurement process, despite its ambiguity, played an important role, making it possible to reconcile a causal rationalism with a positivist posture.
690 _apositivism
690 _aepistemology
690 _atheoretical physicists
690 _aHeisenberg inequalities
690 _acausalism
690 _aquantum mechanics
690 _aFrance
786 0 _nRevue d’histoire des sciences | Volume 68 | 2 | 2016-01-05 | p. 475-507 | 0151-4105
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-d-histoire-des-sciences-2015-2-page-475?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c563619
_d563619