Niels Bohr's Complementarity

by Katsumori, Makoto

• ISBN13: 9789400717473
• ISBN10: 9400717474
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-31
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

This book explores Niels Bohr'¬"s idea of complementarity with a focus on the relation between the roles of what he metaphorically calls '¬Sspectators'¬ and '¬Sactors.'¬ It seeks to spell out the structural and historical complexity of the idea of complementarity in terms of three different (static-contrastive, dynamic, and static-symmetrical) modes of the '¬Üspectator-actor'¬" relation, showing, in particular, that the '¬Ümiddle'¬"-period development of Bohr'¬"s thought starting from his 1935 debate with EPR is characterized by an extension of the dynamic conception of complementarity from non-physical contexts to the very field of quantum theory. Further, linked with this analysis, the present work situates Bohr'¬"s complementarity in contemporary philosophical context by examining its intersections with post-Heideggerian hermeneutics as well as Derridean deconstruction. Specifically, it points to both the close affinities and the differences between Bohr'¬"s idea of the '¬Üactor-spectator'¬" relation and the hermeneutic notion of the relation between '¬Sbelonging'¬ and '¬Sdistanciation'¬ (or '¬Salienation'¬) in Gadamer'¬"s and Ricoeur'¬"s philosophical thought.