In 1933, the young polymath Grete Hermann composed a manuscript on determinism in quantum mechanics which she sent to Dirac and to Copenhagen, where it was read with interest by Bohr, Heisenberg, and Weizsäcker.  Based on the promise shown in this essay, Hermann was invited to join Heisenberg in Leipzig; this visit culminated in the publication of a substantial essay in March 1935 on the natural-philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics.  Hermann’s 1935 essay is one of the first, and certainly among the finest, philosophical treatments of quantum mechanics. Although her aim was to demonstrate the causal completeness of this theory, she far exceeds this goal by providing the contours of a novel neo-Kantian interpretation of quantum mechanics. Due to Hermann’s rigorous dual training in mathematics and philosophy, this interpretation does particular justice to the intricacies of the theory and offers a view unlike others forming the canon of early interpretations.  

In this talk I introduce her view, focusing on her retrocausal thesis (key to her completeness argument for QM), her interpretation of the wavefunction, her early appreciation of entanglement, and her radical "splitting of truth" thesis.