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TUE: Tuesday Contributed Sessions

TUE 4: Education and Outreach

TUE 4.2: Talk

Tuesday, September 9, 2025, 14:30–14:45, ZHG004

Heisenberg's Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: A Road to Pragmatic Positivism — •Kanan Purkayastha — The Philosophical Society, Oxford, United Kingdom

One of the key figures in the development of quantum mechanics was Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976). Heisenberg developed both the first quantum mechanical mathematical framework, matrix mechanics. He also outlined the philosophical basis underpinning it, named thereafter the *uncertainty principle.*

On the other hand, a central contribution to the understanding of science in general and physics in particular, is the naturalistic analysis of the subject by philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000). This is evident in Quine*s works on the nature of language. Within Heisenberg*s writings there is a substantial attention directed to analysing nature of language, and especially its relation to epistemic questions within science.

This paper argues that in spite of Heisenberg being a physicist working in an area of quantum mechanics and Quine being an analytic philosopher concerned with the broader questions of epistemology both of them are led to strikingly similar conclusions about the nature of reality. Also, the abstract account of how science progresses that Quine provides matches closely with the Heisenberg's philosophical ideas of how science in general and physics in particular makes crucial advances. The paper concludes that both Heisenberg and Quine opt for a pragmatic positivism rather than logical positivism.

Keywords: Philosophy; Pragmatic; Positivism; Heisenberg; Quine