Dear Colleagues,

Since its very birth, at the beginning of the 20th century, quantum theory and its subsequent developments have been the subject of intense controversy regarding its correct interpretation and the metaphysical conclusions that could be drawn from it. Surprisingly—or perhaps not so much—this situation has hardly changed after more than a century of debates and discussions. For this reason, the journal Philosophies is currently preparing the launch of the Special Issue entitled Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics, in which we propose to take a fresh look at old problems in the hope of illuminating upon them from different perspectives.

The philosophical problems raised by quantum physics are many and varied: What are the trends in competing philosophies for the interpretation of the quantum world? Is an objective formalization of the theory possible, or will we be always compelled to appeal to the intervention of an external observer? What does Schrödinger’s cat tell us about the problem of measurement and the demarcation between the quantum and the classical realms? Is the wave function a mere calculation tool or does it represent some physically real entity? Does quantum entanglement prevent a causal description of reality? Are Heisenberg’s inequalities a statement about our experimental limitations or do they point to something deeper? Is the probabilistic aspect of quantum theory genuinely compatible with the spatiotemporal view of relativity? Does it make sense to apply quantum considerations to the universe as a whole, or should we wait until we discover a theory that unifies all the fundamental forces of nature?

These and many others are the questions that quantum physics that remain open in the 21st century. In this Special Issue of Philosophies, we attempt to offer a compilation of such questions and their answers with the purpose of satisfying both specialists and neophytes interested in the subject while glimpsing, perhaps, what the future holds for us in this intricate but fascinating domain of science.

Dr. Rafael A. Alemañ
Guest Editor

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• wave function
• collapse
• entanglement
• realism
• objectivism
• subjectivism
• instrumentalism
• causality
• determinism
• space–time