The strange fate of the morphed ‘rump materialism’: a comment on the vagaries of social science as seen through Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science
International Theory February 14, 2022 Friedrich V. Kratochwil
This philosophical commentary critically examines Alexander Wendt's book Quantum Mind, placing it in the context of disciplinary engagement and larger philosophical issues. The author avoids both hasty dismissal and uncritical acceptance, noting that Wendt offers what appears to be a 'theory of everything' but provides little justification for his particular, controversial interpretation of quantum theory. The author questions why Wendt has abandoned conventional professional puzzles, claiming quantum consciousness theory provides an 'ace up the sleeve'. While acknowledging that wave collapse disrupts traditional notions of cause, location, and mass, the author argues this does not automatically entitle us to claim that quantum mechanics has solved most problems of validity and meaning in social science.