The Mind-Body Problem and the Move from Supervenience to Quantum Mechanics
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829818784814 |
| Author | Oliver Kessler |
| Subject Matter | Forum: Social Theory Going Quantum-Theoretic? Questions, Alternatives and Challenges |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818784814
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2018, Vol. 47(1) 74 –86
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829818784814
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1. My first discussion of the book was published in German as ‘Carpet Crawlers’ in the IR
journal Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 23, no 2 (2016), 207–21. Since then, my
perspectives have significantly changed and cannot be compared.
2. Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
3. For the question of how mathematics and translation into ‘common’ language is part of the
game, see Badredine Arfi’s contribution to this Forum.
The Mind-Body Problem and
the Move from Supervenience
to Quantum Mechanics
Oliver Kessler
University of Erfurt, Germany
Keywords
mind-body problem, constructivism, speech act theory
Mots-clés
problème corps-esprit, constructivisme, théorie de l’acte du langage
Palabras clave
problema cuerpo-mente, constructivismo, teoría de los actos del habla
At a time when most articles in International Relations (IR) go ‘micro’ and praise the
promises of some new empiricism,1 Alexander Wendt shows with his Quantum Mind and
Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology (hereafter Quantum Mind and
Social Science) that Theory with a capital T is not dead at all. 2 This is a book that one not
only reads, but one can actually study with much to think about. Wendt guides us through
a world that is certainly fascinating, full of paradoxes, and mind-boggling insights.3 It is
somewhat of a shame that for far too long, modern physics has not been part of our
Corresponding author:
Oliver Kessler, University of Erfurt, Nordhäuserstr 63, Erfurt, 99089, Germany.
Email: oliver.kessler@uni-erfurt.de
784814MIL0010.1177/0305829818784814Millennium: Journal of International StudiesKessler
research-article2018
Forum: Social Theory Going Quantum-Theoretic? Questions,
Alternatives and Challenges
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