Determinism, Determination, and Objectivity in Modern Physics

Kant's case for the objectivity of at least some of our experience is more threatened by the indeterminate than the indeterministic character of modern physics. Indeterminancy is a complex notion. It can be understood, ultimately, in terms of the failure of a “separability” principle, that objects can be individuated only with respect to non-vanishing spatial-temporal intervals. Its failure seems to follow from the fact that it is indispensable to the derivation of Bell's Theorem and that the conclusion of the Theorem is incompatible with well-established empirical results. But Kant's case for objectivity depends on it. The result is unsettling.