Einstein's Local Realism and the Realistic Interpretation of the Wave Function

We review the different kinds of realism debates in philosophy and particularly in philosophy of science, then discussing in which ways they may be empirically significant, and analyzing criteria for a (non sharp nor absolute) demarcation between science and philosophy. We then outline two main realistic approaches in the foundations of quantum mechanics, de Broglie’s and Bohm’s “wave existential realism”, and Einstein, Podolski and Rosen’s “properties independence realism”. Both appear quite appealing, but neither has been completely successful. We then draw inspiration from them to propose a complementarity experiment, whereby the reality of quantum waves turns out to be grounded on “non local” properties of quantum systems. In this frame, empirical evidence appears to be relevant both to philosophy and science.