Wave Function Realism and the Mathematization of Nature. A Phenomenological Perspective

TL;DR

This paper explores wave function realism through phenomenology, proposing a reinterpretation of quantum states as structures of world-givenness and emphasizing a correlational, transcendental form of realism.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological perspective to wave function realism, reconfiguring realism as correlational and transcendental, and interprets quantum mechanics as articulating world-structure rather than an observer-independent reality.

Findings

Quantum states encode the structure of world-givenness.

Measurement is a reflective articulation, not a physical discontinuity.

Quantum mechanics articulates the correlation through which the world is manifest.

Abstract

This chapter reexamines wave function realism (WFR) through the lens of phenomenology. We begin by situating WFR within the broader debate about the ontology of the quantum state and the temptation to "read off" metaphysics from mathematical formalism. Against this background, we turn to the London-Bauer interpretation (LBI), the most explicit attempt to interpret quantum mechanics through phenomenological categories. On this view, the measurement transition is not a physical discontinuity but a reflective articulation of objectivity, and the wave function formally encodes the horizonal structure of world-givenness. We develop this idea by reconfiguring the notion of realism itself: not as objectivist, but as correlational and transcendental. The resulting picture suggests that quantum mechanics, rather than depicting a world "minus observers," mathematically articulates the very correlation through which a world becomes manifest at all.