Perspectivism and Quantum Mechanics

This special issue brings perspectivism, as a recent development in the philosophy of science, into contact with non-objectivist interpretations of quantum mechanics. By “objectivist interpretations,” broadly understood, we mean interpretations that seek to eliminate operational notions such as “measurement” from the fundamental postulates of the theory and insist that quantum mechanics, like classical mechanics, yields a purely objective, third-person description of how reality evolves in time. The guiding hypothesis, exemplified in several contributions to this issue, is that quantum mechanics supports perspectivist approaches to science, and that perspectivism can serve as a suitable philosophical-conceptual framework for certain interpretations of quantum mechanics.