Decoherence, appearance, and reality in agential realism
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Decoherence, appearance, and reality in agential realism. / Jaksland, Rasmus.
In: European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Vol. 13, 24, 01.06.2023.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Decoherence, appearance, and reality in agential realism
AU - Jaksland, Rasmus
PY - 2023/6/1
Y1 - 2023/6/1
N2 - This paper reconsiders what implications quantum decoherence has for Karen Barad’s agential realism. In contrast with the recent claim of Thomas Everth and Laura Gurney (2022), this paper argues that decoherence supports rather than defeats the holist, relational ontology of agential realism. Indeed, decoherence offers an explanation for how a quantum system can remain entangled and superposed in principle while it nevertheless in practice appears classical to a local observer. Decoherence shows why the appearance of classicality is not an objection to the ontology being in reality that of agential realism, in accordance with Barad’s repeated insistence that we should not mistake principle for practice. Whether users of agential realism in social theory should be encouraged by this is another matter that this paper does not take a stance on. As an ontology, however, agential realism is vindicated.
AB - This paper reconsiders what implications quantum decoherence has for Karen Barad’s agential realism. In contrast with the recent claim of Thomas Everth and Laura Gurney (2022), this paper argues that decoherence supports rather than defeats the holist, relational ontology of agential realism. Indeed, decoherence offers an explanation for how a quantum system can remain entangled and superposed in principle while it nevertheless in practice appears classical to a local observer. Decoherence shows why the appearance of classicality is not an objection to the ontology being in reality that of agential realism, in accordance with Barad’s repeated insistence that we should not mistake principle for practice. Whether users of agential realism in social theory should be encouraged by this is another matter that this paper does not take a stance on. As an ontology, however, agential realism is vindicated.
U2 - 10.1007/s13194-023-00528-7
DO - 10.1007/s13194-023-00528-7
M3 - Journal article
VL - 13
JO - European Journal for Philosophy of Science
JF - European Journal for Philosophy of Science
SN - 1879-4912
M1 - 24
ER -
ID: 347631406