Karen Barad’s agential realism and Niels Bohr’s conceptualism

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the human and social sciences to­wards contemporary natural science. In this regard, we can talk about a kind of “natural sciences turn” in these fields of knowledge. It is not just a matter of an active use of ter­minological and ideological baggage from the arsenal of natural sciences, but we can even talk about direct borrowing of argumentation. American researcher Karen Barad is one of the leading figures of this movement. Barad connects her theoretical conception of agential realism directly with quantum mechanics in its interpretation proposed by Niels Bohr. The article compares some of the key concepts of the Bohr vision of quantum mechanics, such as phenomenon, agency of observation with the reading acquired by these concepts in Barad’s agential realism. On a comparative analysis of the interpreta­tion of these concepts by Bohr and Barad a number of problematic points of the concept of agential realism are revealed.