The ontology of Bohmian mechanics

TL;DR

This paper clarifies the ontology of Bohmian mechanics, emphasizing its focus on particles and laws of motion, and explores philosophical foundations like Humeanism and dispositionalism for grounding these laws.

Contribution

It offers a novel interpretation of Bohmian mechanics as committed only to particles and laws, avoiding the need for a physical wave-function as a fundamental entity.

Findings

Bohmian mechanics can be formulated without a physical wave-function.

Humeanism and dispositionalism provide different grounding options for the law of motion.

The approach clarifies the primitive ontology in quantum mechanics.

Abstract

The paper points out that the modern formulation of Bohm's quantum theory known as Bohmian mechanics is committed only to particles' positions and a law of motion. We explain how this view can avoid the open questions that the traditional view faces according to which Bohm's theory is committed to a wave-function that is a physical entity over and above the particles, although it is defined on configuration space instead of three-dimensional space. We then enquire into the status of the law of motion, elaborating on how the main philosophical options to ground a law of motion, namely Humeanism and dispositionalism, can be applied to Bohmian mechanics. In conclusion, we sketch out how these options apply to primitive ontology approaches to quantum mechanics in general.