Results for 'Thought Experiments'

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  1. Thought Experiments and the Epistemology of Laws.Thought Experiments - 1992 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22:15-4.
     
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  2. Thought experiments and philosophical knowledge.Edouard Machery - 2011 - Metaphilosophy 42 (3):191-214.
    : While thought experiments play an important role in contemporary analytic philosophy, much remains unclear about thought experiments. In particular, it is still unclear whether the judgments elicited by thought experiments can provide evidence for the premises of philosophical arguments. This article argues that, if an influential and promising view about the nature of the judgments elicited by thought experiments is correct, then many thought experiments in philosophy fail to provide (...)
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  3. Thought experiments without possible worlds.Daniel Dohrn - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (2):363-384.
    The method of thought experiments or possible cases is widespread in philosophy and elsewhere. Thought experiments come with variegated theoretical commitments. These commitments are risky. They may turn out to be false or at least controversial. Other things being equal, it seems preferable to do with minimal commitments. I explore exemplary ways of minimising commitments, focusing on modal ones. There is a near-consensus to treat the scenarios considered in thought experiments as metaphysical possibilities. I (...)
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  4. Thought experiments and personal identity.Stephen Coleman - 2000 - Philosophical Studies 98 (1):51-66.
    Thought experiments are profitably compared to compasses. A compass is a simple but useful device for determining direction. Nevertheless, it systematically errs in the presence of magnets ...it becomes unreliable near the North Pole, in mine shafts, when vibrated, in the presence of metal ...experts will wish to use the compass as one element in a wider portfolio of navigational techniques. Analogously, thought experiments are simple but useful devices for determining the status of propositions. Sadly, they (...)
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  5.  96
    Literature and Thought Experiments.David Egan - 2016 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (2):139-150.
    Like works of literature, thought experiments present fictional narratives that prompt reflection in their readers. Because of these and other similarities, a number of philosophers have argued for a strong analogy between works of literary fiction and thought experiments, some going so far as to say that works of literary fiction are a species of thought experiment. These arguments are often used in defending a cognitivist position with regard to literature: thought experiments produce (...)
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  6. Thought experiments and the belief in phenomena.James W. McAllister - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1164-1175.
    Thought experiment acquires evidential significance only on particular metaphysical assumptions. These include the thesis that science aims at uncovering "phenomena"universal and stable modes in which the world is articulatedand the thesis that phenomena are revealed imperfectly in actual occurrences. Only on these Platonically inspired assumptions does it make sense to bypass experience of actual occurrences and perform thought experiments. These assumptions are taken to hold in classical physics and other disciplines, but not in sciences that emphasize variety (...)
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  7. Counterfactuals, thought experiments, and singular causal analysis in history.Julian Reiss - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):712-723.
    Thought experiments are ubiquitous in science and especially prominent in domains in which experimental and observational evidence is scarce. One such domain is the causal analysis of singular events in history. A long‐standing tradition that goes back to Max Weber addresses the issue by means of ‘what‐if’ counterfactuals. In this paper I give a descriptive account of this widely used method and argue that historians following it examine difference makers rather than causes in the philosopher’s sense. While difference (...)
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  8. On thought experiments as a priori science.Richard Arthur - 1999 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (3):215 – 229.
    Against Norton's claim that all thought experiments can be reduced to explicit arguments, I defend Brown's position that certain thought experiments yield a priori knowledge. They do this, I argue, not by allowing us to perceive “Platonic universals” (Brown), even though they may contain non-propositional components that are epistemically indispensable, but by helping to identify certain tacit presuppositions or “natural interpretations” (Feyerabend's term) that lead to a contradiction when the phenomenon is described in terms of them, (...)
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  9.  29
    Thought Experiments and Novels.Tony Milligan - 2019 - Studia Humana 8 (1):84-92.
    Novels and thought experiments can be pathways to different kinds of knowledge. We may, however, be hard pressed to say exactly what can be learned from novels but not from thought experiments. Headway on this matter can be made by spelling out their respective conditions for epistemic failure. Thought experiments fail in their epistemic role when they neither yield propositional knowledge nor contribute to an argument. They are largely in the business of ‘knowing that’. (...)
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  10. Thought Experiments Considered Harmful.Paul Thagard - 2014 - Perspectives on Science 22 (2):122-139.
    Thought experiments have been influential in philosophy at least since Plato, and they have contributed to science at least since Galileo. Some of this influence is appropriate, because thought experiments can have legitimate roles in generating and clarifying hypotheses, as well as in identifying problems in competing hypotheses. I will argue, however, that philosophers have often overestimated the significance of thought experiments by supposing that they can provide evidence that supports the acceptance of beliefs. (...)
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  11. Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction.Jonathan Ichikawa & Benjamin Jarvis - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 142 (2):221 - 246.
    What sorts of things are the intuitions generated via thought experiment? Timothy Williamson has responded to naturalistic skeptics by arguing that thought-experiment intuitions are judgments of ordinary counterfactuals. On this view, the intuition is naturalistically innocuous, but it has a contingent content and could be known at best a posteriori. We suggest an alternative to Williamson's account, according to which we apprehend thought-experiment intuitions through our grasp on truth in fiction. On our view, intuitions like the Gettier (...)
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  12. Why Thought Experiments Do Not Transcend Empiricism.John D. Norton - 2004 - In Christopher Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary debates in philosophy of science. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 44-66.
    Thought experiments are ordinary argumentation disguised in a vivid pictorial or narrative form. This account of their nature will allow me to show that empiricism has nothing to fear from thought experiments. They perform no epistemic magic. In so far as they tell us about the world, thought experiments draw upon what we already know of it, either explicitly or tacitly; they then transform that knowledge by disguised argumentation. They can do nothing more epistemically (...)
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  13. Rethinking thought experiments.Alisa Bokulich - 2001 - Perspectives on Science 9 (3):285-307.
    : An examination of two thought experiments in contemporary physics reveals that the same thought experiment can be reanalyzed from the perspective of different and incompatible theories. This fact undermines those accounts of thought experiments that claim their justificatory power comes from their ability to reveal the laws of nature. While thought experiments do play a genuine evaluative role in science, they do so by testing the nonempirical virtues of a theory, such as (...)
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  14. Computational Thought Experiments for a More Rigorous Philosophy and Science of the Mind.Iris Oved, Nikhil Krishnaswamy, James Pustejovsky & Joshua Hartshorne - 2024 - In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey & E. Hazeltine (eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. CC BY. pp. 601-609.
    We offer philosophical motivations for a method we call Virtual World Cognitive Science (VW CogSci), in which researchers use virtual embodied agents that are embedded in virtual worlds to explore questions in the field of Cognitive Science. We focus on questions about mental and linguistic representation and the ways that such computational modeling can add rigor to philosophical thought experiments, as well as the terminology used in the scientific study of such representations. We find that this method forces (...)
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  15. (1 other version)How Thought Experiments Increase Understanding.Michael T. Stuart - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 526-544.
    We might think that thought experiments are at their most powerful or most interesting when they produce new knowledge. This would be a mistake; thought experiments that seek understanding are just as powerful and interesting, and perhaps even more so. A growing number of epistemologists are emphasizing the importance of understanding for epistemology, arguing that it should supplant knowledge as the central notion. In this chapter, I bring the literature on understanding in epistemology to bear on (...)
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  16. Why Thought Experiments are Not Arguments.Michael A. Bishop - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (4):534-541.
    Are thought experiments nothing but arguments? I argue that it is not possible to make sense of the historical trajectory of certain thought experiments if one takes them to be arguments. Einstein and Bohr disagreed about the outcome of the clock-in-the-box thought experiment, and so they reconstructed it using different arguments. This is to be expected whenever scientists disagree about a thought experiment's outcome. Since any such episode consists of two arguments but just one (...)
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  17.  65
    (1 other version)On thought experiments and the Kantian a priori in the natural sciences: a reply to Yiftach J.H. Fehige.Marco Buzzoni - 2013 - Epistemologia 36 (2):277-293.
    This paper replies to objections that have been raised against my operational-Kantian account of thought experiments by Fehige 2012 and 2013. Fehige also sketches an alternative Neo-Kantian account that utilizes Michael Friedman’s concept of a contingent and changeable a priori. To this I shall reply, first, that Fehige’s objections not only neglect some fundamental points I had made as regards the realizability of TEs, but also underestimate the principle of empiricism, which was rightly defended by Kant. Secondly, in (...)
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  18. Thought Experiments and the Problem of Deviant Realizations.Thomas Grundmann & Joachim Horvath - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (3):525-533.
    Descriptions of Gettier cases can be interpreted in ways that are incompatible with the standard judgment that they are cases of justified true belief without knowledge. Timothy Williamson claims that this problem cannot be avoided by adding further stipulations to the case descriptions. To the contrary, we argue that there is a fairly simple way to amend the Ford case, a standard description of a Gettier case, in such a manner that all deviant interpretations are ruled out. This removes one (...)
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  19. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics.James Robert Brown - 2007 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1):3-27.
    Most disciplines make use of thought experiments, but physics and philosophy lead the pack with heavy dependence upon them. Often this is for conceptual clarification, but occasionally they provide real theoretical advances. In spite of their importance, however, thought experirnents have received rather little attention as a topic in their own right until recently. The situation has improved in the past few years, but a mere generation ago the entire published literature on thought experiments could (...)
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  20.  66
    Thought Experiments and Conceptual Analysis in Ethics.Kamil Cekiera - 2023 - Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia 18 (1):29-43.
    In recent years a lot of metaphilosophical attention has been paid to the role of thought experiments in philosophical inquiry. According to the popular picture, thought experiments are among the most prominent methods for conceptual analysis. However, it is also often claimed that thought experiments in ethics differ from those that are used in other fields of philosophy as being of a different nature—they are not about the concepts, but rather about the things in (...)
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  21. Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy.Tamara Horowitz & Gerald J. Massey (eds.) - 1991 - Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
    Despite their centrality and importance to both science and philosophy, relatively little has been written about thought experiments. This volume brings together a series of extremely interesting studies of the history, mechanics, and applications of this important intellectual resource. A distinguished list of philosophers and scientists consider the role of thought experiments in their various disciplines, and argue that an examination of thought experimentation goes to the heart of both science and philosophy.
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  22.  7
    Thought Experiments: History and Applications for Education.Chris Edwards - 2021 - Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
    Thought experiments are responsible for several major intellectual revolutions throughout history. Given their importance it is surprising that they are not used more frequently as teaching tools. The history of thought experiments, their applications to disciplines across academia, and their practical classroom uses are examined in this book.
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  23.  70
    Thought Experiments in Methodological and Historical Contexts.Katerina Ierodiakonou & Sophie Roux (eds.) - 2011 - Brill.
    Thought experiments being central to contemporary philosophy and science, the following questions were asked in recent literature. What is their definition? Are they heuristic devices, arguments, paradoxes? Are they comparable to real experiments? Do intuition and conceivability intervene? Equally imaginative thought experiments are found in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance texts. Paying attention to prime historical examples of thought experiments, we show that historical perspectives help answer these general questions.
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  24. Functional Thought Experiments.Denny Borsboom, Gideon J. Mellenbergh & Jaap Van Heerden - 2002 - Synthese 130 (3):379-387.
    The literature on thought experiments has been mainly concernedwith thought experiments that are directed at a theory, be it in aconstructive or a destructive manner. This has led somephilosophers to argue that all thought experiments can beformulated as arguments. The aim of this paper is to drawattention to a type of thought experiment that is not directed ata theory, but fulfills a specific function within a theory. Suchthought experiments are referred to as (...)
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  25. Can Thought Experiments Solve Problems of Personal Identity?Lukas J. Meier - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-23.
    Good physical experiments conform to the basic methodological standards of experimental design: they are objective, reliable, and valid. But is this also true of thought experiments? Especially problems of personal identity have engendered hypothetical scenarios that are very distant from the actual world. These imagined situations have been conspicuously ineffective at resolving conflicting intuitions and deciding between the different accounts of personal identity. Using prominent examples from the literature, I argue that this is due to many of (...)
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  26. Thought experiments in ethics.Georg Brun - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 195–210.
    This chapter suggests a scheme of reconstruction, which explains how scenarios, questions and arguments figure in thought experiments. It then develops a typology of ethical thought experiments according to their function, which can be epistemic, illustrative, rhetorical, heuristic or theory-internal. Epistemic functions of supporting or refuting ethical claims rely on metaethical assumptions, for example, an epistemological background of reflective equilibrium. In this context, thought experiments may involve intuitive as well as explicitly argued judgements; they (...)
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  27.  41
    On Thought Experiments, Theology, and Mathematical Platonism.Yiftach Fehige & Andrea Vestrucci - 2022 - Axiomathes 32 (1):43-54.
    In our contribution to this special issue on thought experiments and mathematics, we aim to insert theology into the conversation. There is a very long tradition of substantial inquiries into the relationship between theology and mathematics. Platonism has been provoking a consolidation of that tradition to some extent in recent decades. Accordingly, in this paper we look at James R. Brown’s Platonic account of thought experiments. Ultimately, we offer an analysis of some of the merits and (...)
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    Thought Experiment more geometric.Daria Drozdova - 2016 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 49 (3):43-47.
    Thought experiments can be used in various ways. A part of them seems to have a special epistemic value: they can give us a new, unknown information about reality. One of the most famous thought experiments of that kind is the thought experiment of Galileo which demonstrates that two bodies of the same kind should fall with the same speed. However, an analysis of this argument shows that it is based on several ontological presuppositions. Therefore (...)
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  29. Why Thought Experiments Transcend Experience.James Robert Brown - 2004 - In Why Empiricism Won't Work. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 23-43.
     
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  30.  45
    Some Thought-Experiments Involving Macrosystems as Illustrations of Various Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics.A. J. Leggett - 1999 - Foundations of Physics 29 (3):445-456.
    I consider various experiments related to the so-called “macroscopic quantum coherence” experiment, which are probably at present in the class of “thought” experiment but are likely to become realistic in the next few decades. I explore the way in which outcomes consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics would be interpreted by an adherent of, respectively, the Copenhagen, statistical, and Bohmian interpretations of the formalism.
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  31. Thought Experiment: On the Powers and Limits of Imaginary Cases.Tamar Gendler - 2000 - New York: Routledge.
    This book offers a novel analysis of the widely-used but ill-understood technique of thought experiment. The author argues that the powers and limits of this methodology can be traced to the fact that when the contemplation of an imaginary scenario brings us to new knowledge, it does so by forcing us to make sense of exceptional cases.
     
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  32. Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling.Nancy J. Nersessian - 2007 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (2):125-161.
    The paper argues that the practice of thought experintenting enables scientists to follow through the implications of a way of representing nature by simulating an exemplary or representative situation that is feasible within that representation. What distinguishes thought experimenting from logical argument and other forms of propositional reasoning is that reasoning by means of a thought experiment involves constructing and simulating a mental model of a representative situation. Although thought experimenting is a creative part of scientific (...)
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  33.  85
    Mindless thought experiments (a critique of machine intelligence).Jaron Lanier - manuscript
    Since there isn't a computer that seems conscious at this time, the idea of machine consciousness is supported by thought experiments. Here's one old chestnut: "What if you replaced your neurons one by one with neuron sized and shaped substitutes made of silicon chips that perfectly mimicked the chemical and electric functions of the originals? If you just replaced one single neuron, surely you'd feel the same. As you proceed, as more and more neurons are replaced, you'd stay (...)
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  34. Thought experiments: Reply to Donnellan.Taylor Burge - 2003 - In Martin Hahn & Björn T. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. MIT Press.
     
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  35. (1 other version)Intuitions in Science: Thought Experiments as Argument Pumps.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2014 - In Anthony Robert Booth & Darrell P. Rowbottom (eds.), Intuitions. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 119-134.
    In this piece, I advocate and motivate a new understanding of thought experiments, which avoids problems with the rival accounts of Brown and Norton.
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  36. Thought Experiments: State of the Art.Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 1-28.
  37. Thought experiments rethought—and reperceived.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1152-1163.
    Contemplating imaginary scenarios that evoke certain sorts of quasi‐sensory intuitions may bring us to new beliefs about contingent features of the natural world. These beliefs may be produced quasi‐observationally; the presence of a mental image may play a crucial cognitive role in the formation of the belief in question. And this albeit fallible quasi‐observational belief‐forming mechanism may, in certain contexts, be sufficiently reliable to count as a source of justification. This sheds light on the central puzzle surrounding scientific thought (...)
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  38. What is Experimental about Thought Experiments?David C. Gooding - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:280 - 290.
    I argue that thought experiments are a form of experimental reasoning similar to real experiments. They require the same ability to participate by following a narrative as real experiments do. Participation depends in turn on using what we already know to visualize, manipulate and understand what is unfamiliar or problematic. I defend the claim that visualization requires embodiment by an example which shows how tacit understanding of the properties of represented objects and relations enables us to (...)
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  39. (1 other version)The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences.James Robert Brown - 1991 - New York: Routledge.
    Newton's bucket, Einstein's elevator, Schrödinger's cat – these are some of the best-known examples of thought experiments in the natural sciences. But what function do these experiments perform? Are they really experiments at all? Can they help us gain a greater understanding of the natural world? How is it possible that we can learn new things just by thinking? In this revised and updated new edition of his classic text _The Laboratory of the Mind_, James Robert (...)
  40.  47
    Thought Experiments Rethought--and Reperceived - Philosopher's Index - ProQuest.Jon McGinnis - 2016 - .
    The study begins with the language employed in and the psychological basis of thought experiments as understood by certain medieval Arabic philosophers. It then provides a taxonomy of different kinds of thoughts experiments used in the medieval Islamic world. These include purely fictional thought experiments, idealizations and finally thought experiments using ingenious machines. The study concludes by suggesting that thought experiments provided a halfway house during this period between a staunch rationalism (...)
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  41.  40
    The Puzzle of Thought Experiments in Conceptual Metaphor Research.András Kertész - 2015 - Foundations of Science 20 (2):147-174.
    How can thought experiments lead to new empirical knowledge if they do not make use of empirical information? This puzzle has been widely discussed in the philosophy of science. It arises in conceptual metaphor research as well and is especially important for the clarification of its empirical foundations. The aim of the paper is to suggest a possible solution to the puzzle of thought experiments in conceptual metaphor research. The solution rests on the application of a (...)
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  42.  43
    Thought Experiments and Simulation Experiments: Exploring Hypothetical Worlds.Johannes Lenhard - unknown
    Both thought experiments and simulation experiments apparently belong to the family of experiments, though they are somewhat special members because they work without intervention into the natural world. Instead they explore hypothetical worlds. For this reason many have wondered whether referring to them as “experiments” is justified at all. While most authors are concerned with only one type of “imagined” experiment – either simulation or thought experiment – the present chapter hopes to gain new (...)
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  43. (1 other version)On Thought Experiments.Ernst Mach - 1973 - Philosophical Forum 4 (3):446.
     
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  44. Thought Experiments in Experimental Philosophy.Kirk Ludwig - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 385-405.
    Much of the recent movement organized under the heading “Experimental Philosophy” has been concerned with the empirical study of responses to thought experiments drawn from the literature on philosophical analysis. I consider what bearing these studies have on the traditional projects in which thought experiments have been used in philosophy. This will help to answer the question what the relation is between Experimental Philosophy and philosophy, whether it is an “exciting new style of [philosophical] research”, “a (...)
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    Thought Experiments, Epistemology & our Cognitive Capacities.Kenneth R. Westphal - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge.
    Does epistemology collapse for lack of resources other than logic, conceptual analysis and descriptions of one’s own apparent experiences, thoughts and beliefs? No, but understanding how and why not requires, Kant noted, a ‘changed method of thinking’. Some of these methodological changes are summarised in §2 in order to identify a philosophical role for thought experiments to help identify logically contingent, though cognitively fundamental capacities and circumstances necessary to human thought, experience and knowledge. As Kant also noted, (...)
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    Thought Experiments as Social Practice and the Clash of Imaginers.Daniele Molinari - 2022 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 22 (65):229-247.
    In the last few years, several philosophers have highlighted the social dimension of imagination. In this paper I argue that thought experiments prompt social uses of imaginings if we understand them as props in games of make-believe. In prescribing to imagine stories that develop through fictional narratives, authors of thought experiments prompt their readers to engage in the same imaginative project—at least in its salient aspects—and to endorse their conclusions. Contributions on this topic focus on cases (...)
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    (1 other version)Empirical Thought Experiments: A Transcendental-Operational View.Marco Buzzoni - 2009 - Epistemologia 33 (1):5-26.
    The operational perspective here defended permits a reflexive-transcendental point of view that sharply distinguishes the two concepts, while, at the same time, maintaining the connection between them. On the one hand, simply imagining that the experimental apparatus, counterfactually anticipated in a thought experiment, has really been constructed is sufficient to erase any difference between thought and real experiments. On the other hand, this very ‘imagining’, this capacity of the mind to assume every real entity as a possible (...)
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  48. The epistemology of thought experiments: A non-eliminativist, non-platonic account.Hayley Clatterbuck - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (3):309-329.
    Several major breakthroughs in the history of physics have been prompted not by new empirical data but by thought experiments. James Robert Brown and John Norton have developed accounts of how thought experiments can yield such advances. Brown argues that knowledge gained via thought experiments demands a Platonic explanation; thought experiments for Brown are a window into the Platonic realm of the laws of nature. Norton argues that thought experiments are (...)
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  49. Thought experiments in current metaphilosophical debates.Daniel Cohnitz & Sören Häggqvist - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 406-424.
    Although thought experiments were first discovered as a sui generis methodological tool by philosophers of science (most prominently by Ernst Mach), the tool can also be found – even more frequently – in contemporary philosophy. Thought experiments in philosophy and science have a lot in common. However, in this chapter we will concentrate on thought experiments in philosophy only. Their use has been the centre of attention of metaphilosophical discussion in the past decade, and (...)
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  50. Transplant Thought-Experiments: Two costly mistakes in discounting them.Simon Beck - 2014 - South African Journal of Philosophy 33 (2):189-199.
    ‘Transplant’ thought-experiments, in which the cerebrum is moved from one body to another, have featured in a number of recent discussions in the personal identity literature. Once taken as offering confirmation of some form of psychological continuity theory of identity, arguments from Marya Schechtman and Kathleen Wilkes have contended that this is not the case. Any such apparent support is due to a lack of detail in their description or a reliance on predictions that we are in no (...)
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