A Historicized Ontology for the Quantum World: A Philosophical Investigation of the Quantum Histories Interpretation

This book discusses the ontology in the quantum world and argues that it should be interpreted as a historicized ontology. This perspective is advocated by the quantum histories interpretation. Inspired by the nomological interpretation from Bohmian mechanics and the corresponding understanding of the law of nature and logic, the ontology will be useful to solve the difficulties of confusing ontology and perplexing logical inference. Furthermore, this book proposes that the historicized ontology can be generalized to more complicated structures and fit naturally into temporal correlation. Core philosophical issues such as the law of nature, the ontology of events, history, and processes, and the metaphysics of history are coherently discussed, revealing the profound meaning behind the formalism of quantum histories. By providing a new framework for a historicized picture of ontology, it will effectively promote the debates in the philosophy of physics and the fundamental research in quantum mechanics. This book will appeal to scholars and students of the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and quantum theory.