The relativistic revolution led to varieties of neo-Kantianism in which constitutive principles define the object of scientific knowledge in a domain-dependent and historically mutable manner. These principles are a priori insofar as they are necessary premises for the formulation of empirical laws in a given domain, but they lack the self-evidence of Kant’s a priori and they cannot be identified without prior knowledge of the theory they purport to frame. In contrast, the rationalist endeavors of a few masters of theoretical (...) physics have led to comprehensibility conditions that are easily admitted in a given domain and yet suffice to generate the theory of this domain. The purpose of this essay is to compare these two kinds of relativized a priori, to discuss the nature of the comprehensibility conditions, and to demonstrate their effectiveness in a modular conception of physical theories. (shrink)

This essay is a discussion of the philosophical and foundational issues that arise in non-relativistic quantum theory. After introducing the formalism of the theory, I consider: characterizations of the quantum formalism, empirical content, uncertainty, the measurement problem, and non-locality. In each case, the main point is to give the reader some introductory understanding of some of the major issues and recent ideas.