How and when did locality become ‘local realism’? A historical and critical analysis (1963–1978)

Abstract

The history of the debates on the foundational implications of the Bell non-locality theorem displayed very soon a tendency to put the theorem in a perspective that was not entirely motivated by its very assumptions, in particular in terms of a ‘local-realistic’ narrative, according to which a major target of the theorem would be the very possibility to conceive quantum theory as a theory concerning ‘real’ stuff in the world out-there. I present here a historico-critical analysis of the stages, between 1963 and 1978, through which the locality condition of the original Bell theorem almost undiscernibly turned into a ‘local realism’ condition, a circumstance which too often has affected the analysis of how serious the consequences of the Bell theorem turn out to be. In particular, the analysis puts into focus the interpretive oscillations and inconsistencies surrounding ‘local realism’, that emerge in the very descriptions that many leading figures provided themselves of the deep work they devoted to the theorem and its consequences.