Quantum Mechanics

The Scientific Image by van Fraassen, published by OUP in 1980, was co-winner of the Franklin J. Matchette Prize for a work of outstanding philosophic merit, and of the Lakatos Award for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. It sold 4500 copies. More recently came Laws and Symmetry (1989), which has sold around 3000.

`Van Fraassen has written a challenging book, full of important insights, confronting lazy orthodoxes with finer distinctions than they are used to, and giving the reader food for thought at every turn. The best aspect of Van Fraassen's work is that he engages in the intellectual pursuit with real determination, working out the details of his individualistic view with subtlety and skill.'Metascience Issue 3, 1993

• Part 1 Determinism and inderterminism in classical perspective: determinism; indeterminism and probability. Part 2 How the phenomena demand quantum theory: the empirical basis of quantum theory; new probability models and their logic. Part 3 Mathematical foundations: the basic theory of quantum mechanics; composite systems, interaction, and measurement. Part 4 Questions of interpretation: critique of the standard interpretation; modal interpretation of quantum mechanics; EPR - when is a correlation not a mystery?; the problem of identical particles; indentical particles - individuation and modality.