Struggling with causality: Schrödinger's case

When one considers the schematic division between 'orthodox' and 'deviant' quantum theoreticians, one usually takes Schrödinger to belong to the latter camp. It is held that he, just like Einstein, could not come to terms with the inherently acausal nature of quantum mechanics. Since it is known that in the early twenties Schrödinger was rather sceptical about causality, it is suggested by several historians that Schrödinger changed his position, converting to the causal view in the mid twenties. In this paper I argue that Schrödinger did not change his views in any substantial way with regard to causality. To the end of his life he continued to entertain the idea that some of the laws of nature are irreducibly probabilistic. His objections to the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics lay elsewhere and did not converge with those of Einstein. To substantiate this claim I need to take a detour through a description of the different uses of the notion of causality by quantum physicists. This analysis is the subject of the first section. In the second section, the distinctions I have introduced serve to interpret Schrödinger's position. The picture I am presenting is a continuous one; no mysterious 'quantum jumps' are detected in Schrödinger's position.