Researcher Stefano Osnaghi of the University of Vienna will deliver the Grand Lecture “A Normativist Outlook on Quantum Rationality” on October 10, 2025, at 10:00 a.m., in Auditorium 1 of the Federal University of Minas Gerais’ School of Economics (FACE). The event is an initiative of the FUNDEP/IEAT Chairs program.

Open to the general public, the event will award certificates of participation to those who register through the Even3 platform and sign the attendance list on the day of the event. The lecture will be delivered in English, without translation.

A Normativist Perspective on Quantum Rationality

At the conference, Osnaghi will propose a reinterpretation of physicist Niels Bohr’s original contributions to quantum mechanics, which, he argues, contain insights that are best appreciated when considering certain contemporary trends in the analytic philosophy of language. Notable among these are studies on normativity and meaning, pioneered by authors such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap, which revolutionized philosophy in the same years that quantum indeterminism was reshaping physics.

According to the researcher, Bohr’s ideas, often considered obscure in the face of the so-called “measurement problem” and treated as a dogmatic shortcut to avoid the conceptual challenges posed by quantum mechanics, can be enlighteningly reinterpreted when viewed in light of non-representationalist theories of rationality.

The speaker will argue that this perspective can pave the way for a “rational reconstruction” of quantum mechanics, without the need for ad hoc mathematical hypotheses. “Bohr’s ideas notably outline a metatheoretical framework in which quantum paradoxes simply do not arise. I argue that ideas about quantum mechanics can be refined and developed along the lines of Robert Brandom’s inferentialism,” he explains. This approach, Osnaghi explains, allows us to understand quantum physics as a formal model of the fundamental operations of rational agents, creating fertile ground for exploring the normative dimension of conceptual activity.

About the guest

Stefano Osnaghi is a researcher in the areas of fundamental physics and epistemology. After earning a PhD in quantum physics and a PhD in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he has worked in several interdisciplinary contexts, including the University of Vienna, the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna), the Department of Philosophy of the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), the Institute for Advanced Studies in Marseille, the Institute for Cultural Research in Berlin, the Centre for Research in Applied Epistemology of the École Polytechnique (Paris), the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University, and the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).