An analysis on relationship between Bohr's and Heisenberg's Principles of Correspondence and Complementarity and Peirce's Pragmatic Maxim

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Philosophy of Natural Sciences and Technology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Imam Hossein University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Imam Hossein University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Relying on Peirce’s Pragmatic Maxim, this article attempts to show how a consistent (coherent) understanding of Bohr’s and Heisenberg’s positions on the principles of correspondence and complementarity can be achieved. We have addressed this issue in two steps. The first step consists of answering two questions (A) and (B). The answer to question (A), through an analysis of the correspondence principle at two levels, shows that the reason why Bohr and Heisenberg were led to philosophical reflections can be found in their being caught up in a schema of the philosophical problem and in their changing fundamental position towards the real world and our understanding of it. We will explain which main issue these reflections were about and with what decisive considerations. The answer to question (B) also contains an explanation that if there is a kind of kinship between the philosophical reflections of Bohr and Heisenberg and the pragmatist views of Peirce, what do we mean by this (and what not). The second step of the article consists of two parts. First, by explaining Peirce's Pragmatic Maxim, we show how this Maxim, by tying concepts such as truth and the real world to the potentially-infinite continuity of inquiry, brings about epistemological and semantic consequences that help us to arrive at a consistent (coherent) understanding of the correspondence principle; then, by explaining James's addition to this very Maxim, we also show how to do the same of the complementarity principle and its consequences.

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 23 August 2026

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