Leonardo da Vinci’s Holistic Conception of Nature and Quantum Non-Separability

At variance with some recent interpretations emphasizing the relevance of Leonardo’s natural philosophy for contemporary science, the aim of this paper is neither to interpret Leonardo as a precursor of quantum mechanics nor to assimilate his conception of nature to contemporary relational interpretations of quantum theory. Rather, we argue that Leonardo’s organic and holistic perspective offers an alternative to mechanistic reductionism while still preserving the epistemological distinction between observer and observed reality. Quantum mechanics, by contrast, radicalizes the crisis of separability by undermining not only the independence of physical systems through entanglement and nonlocality, but also the classical distinction between subject and object through the unavoidable interaction involved in measurement processes. Leonardo’s relational and organic conception of nature should therefore not be confused with contemporary anti-realist or purely relational ontologies, since it remains grounded in a fundamentally realist and empiricist epistemology.