Cassirer and Bohr: between Leibniz and Kant

H. PRINGE

Simposio; Simposio ?Kant and the Sciences; 2015

The aim of this paper is to compare Cassirer´s and Bohr´s views on symbolic knowledge in quantum physics. Although both of them consider quantum physics as symbolic knowledge, for Cassirer this amounts to a complete renunciation to sensible intuition in quantum physics, while according to Bohr only spatio-temporal images may provide the mathematical formalism of the theory with physical reference. We show the Leibnizian roots of Cassirer´s position, the Kantian ones of Bohr´s and we claim that only by means of a Kantian concept of symbol one may account for the sensible content of quantum theory as well as for its systematic relation to classical physics.