Are all Measurement Outcomes Classical?
Résumé
In Bohr's view, all measurement outcomes, even in microphysics, are "classical" because they are expressed by means of the concepts of classical physics (or by everyday concepts refined by classical physics). This paper provides a careful analysis of Bohr's arguments in favour of this claim; the one concerning the possibility of using classical concepts so as to express the measurement outcomes, and the one concerning its necessity. Both arguments are shown to fail. Nevertheless, it appears that the concepts which are in fact used for the description of the measurement outcomes in microphysics originate from classical physics and the scales associated with the measured observables are extensions of the ones associated with the classical physical magnitudes. In this respect, the measurement outcomes in microphysics can be considered as "classical" by reference to classical physics only in a narrow sense.