Overview: A New Kind of Science
This overview introduces the book’s aim of showing how quantum theory marks a radical break from previous scientific theorizing: We are warranted in accepting the fundamental status within contemporary physics of a theory that posits no new physical entities or magnitudes of its own. By contrast with existing interpretations that attempt to say how the world could possibly be the way quantum theory says it is, a pragmatist takes understanding quantum theory to be a matter of knowing how it is applied, and how the theory’s various elements function in these applications. So Part I of the book offers a simple, self-contained presentation of quantum theory, emphasizing applications; while Part II says why the quantum revolution matters for philosophy. Coming to terms with the quantum revolution involves adopting views of scientific theorizing, probability, causation, explanation, objectivity, meaning, and fundamentality that philosophers should have arrived at without its prompting.