Phenomenology and QBism

This volume brings together philosophers and physicists to explore the parallels between Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism, and the phenomenological tradition. It is the first book exclusively devoted to phenomenology and quantum mechanics. By emphasizing the role of the subject's experiences and expectations, and by explicitly rejecting the idea that the notion of physical reality could ever be reduced to a purely third-person perspective, QBism exhibits several interesting parallels with phenomenology. The central message of QBism is that quantum probabilities must be interpreted as the experiencing agent's personal Bayesian degrees of belief - degrees of belief for the consequences of their actions on a quantum system. The chapters in this volume elaborate on whether and specify how phenomenology could serve as the philosophical foundation of QBism. This objective is pursued from the perspective of QBists engaging with phenomenology as well as the perspective of phenomenologists engaging with QBism. These approaches enable us to realize a better understanding of quantum mechanics and the world we live in, achieve a better understanding of QBsim, and introduce the phenomenological foundations of quantum mechanics. Phenomenology and QBism is an essential resource for researchers and graduate students working in the philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, quantum mechanics, and phenomenology.

Philipp Berghofer is a Post-Doc researcher and lecturer at the Philosophy Department of the University of Graz, Austria, and a former visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, USA (Spring Term 2023). His research focus centers around epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of physics. Harald A. Wiltsche is Full Professor in Theoretical Philosophy at Linköping University, Sweden. Prior to that, he held positions at Stanford University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Graz. His main areas of research are the general philosophy of science, the philosophy of physics, and phenomenology.

1. Introducing Phenomenology to QBism and Vice Versa: Phenomenological Approaches to Quantum Mechanics Philipp Berghofer and Harald A. Wiltsche Part 1: From QBism to Phenomenology 2. Towards a World Game-Flavored as a Hawk's Wing Blake Stacey 3. QBism, Where Next? Chris Fuchs 4. A QBist Reads Merleau-Ponty Rüdiger Schack 5. Unobservable Entities in QBism and Phenomenology Jacques Pienaar Part 2: From Phenomenology to QBism 6. On the Consilience between QBism and Phenomenology Hans Christian von Baeyer 7. QBism: Realism about What? Thomas Ryckman 8. QBism: An Eco-Phenomenology of Quantum Physics Michel Bitbol and Laura de La Tremblaye Part 3: Supplementary Approaches 9. Putting Some Flesh on the Participant in Participatory Realism Steven French 10. Back to Kant! QBism, Phenomenology, and Reality-Construction from Invariants Florian Boge 11. The Role of Reconstruction in the Elucidation of Quantum Theory Philip Goyal