On the Identity of Thought Experiments

Bokulich, Alisa; Frappier, Mélanie

doi:10.4324/9781315175027-32

Cited by 8 publications

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“…It would be interesting to explore questions of the identity of thought experiments in light of the form/content distinction offered here, but this will have to be left for another time. See Bokulich and Frappier (2018) for an outline of the variety of views available on the identity of thought experiments.…”

Section: The Formulation Of Thought Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The thought is that unlike artworks, models and thought experiments cannot be interpreted in a "flexible" way. This is an interesting topic, but because this does not hinge on my focus here, I'll just note that while there are limits to how a thought experiment can be properly interpreted, there can be disagreements regarding what would happen in the scenario presented or what conclusions can be drawn, and thought experiments can be analyzed from the perspective of different theories (see Bokulich 2001, Elgin 2017, Murphy 2020a).…”

Section: Form and Content In Aestheticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Form and Content: A Defense of Aesthetic Value in Science

Murphy

2023

Philos. sci.

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Those who wish to defend the role of aesthetic values in science face a dilemma: Aesthetic language is either used metaphorically for what are ultimately epistemic features, or it is used literally, but the importance of such values for science are unclear. This paper introduces a new account that gets around this problem by looking to an overlooked source of aesthetic value in science: the relation between form and content. A fit between the content of a thought experiment, and the way in which that content is formulated, can have important epistemic pay offs through contributing to scientific understanding.

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Section: The Formulation Of Thought Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Form and Content In Aestheticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Form and Content: A Defense of Aesthetic Value in Science

Murphy

2023

Philos. sci.

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“…The most prominent views range from constructivist accounts according to which thought experiments are capable of pointing us to weaknesses of current theories (Kuhn 1977, Gendler 1998, Camilleri 2014, to accounts which construe thought experimentation as a form of mental modelling (Nersessian 1992), to Platonist views which conceive of some thought experiments as windows to laws of nature (Brown 1991), and to the view that thought experiments are identical to arguments (Norton 1991(Norton , 2004. Although Norton's view has been criticised by many commentators as too restrictive (Bishop 1999, Bokulich and Frappier 2017, Brendel 2017, a weaker thesis, namely that thought experiments can be reconstructed as arguments, strikes us as not too problematic. 3 Häggqvist (2009), who has analysed one important class of thought experiments in philosophy and in science in terms of counterfactual conditionals (see also Williamson 2007), proposes the following reconstruction:…”

Section: The Structure Of Thought Experiments and The Evidential Role Of Judgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Armchair physics and the method of cases

Schindler

Saint‐Germier

2021

Inquiry

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The method of cases, i.e., the informal elicitation of judgements in thought experiments for the purpose of philosophical theorising, has been much criticised in recent years. In this paper we point out that the method of cases is not peculiar to philosophy: it can also be found in physics, where it has made a more limited, but still valuable contribution to the probing and formulation of theories. The method of cases per se should therefore not be treated as intrinsically methodologically flawed. This paper has also a narrower goal: to show that when the analogy underlying the so-called 'expertise defence' is drawn between judgements in thought experiments in philosophy and in physics, several objections can be avoided.

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“…The problem concerns the "puzzling fact that thought experiments often have novel empirical import even though they are conducted entirely inside one's head" (Horowitz and Massey 1991, p. 1). 14 Positions on this problem range across all the major epistemological "-isms," including empiricism (Norton 1991(Norton , 1996(Norton , 2004a(Norton , 2004b rationalism (Brown 1986(Brown , 1991(Brown , 2004, naturalism (Gendler 2004;Miščević 1992Miščević , 2007Nersessian 1992Nersessian , 1993Nersessian , 2007Nersessian , 2008Nersessian , 2018, phenomenology (Hopp 2014, Wiltsche 2018), Kantianism (Buzzoni 2013(Buzzoni , 2018, pluralism (Bokulich and Frappier 2018), contextualism (McAllister 2018), and skepticism (Meinong 1907, pp. 276-277;Thagard 2010, p. 209).…”

Section: The Epistemology Of Thought Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a dual process epistemology of imagination

Stuart

2019

Synthese

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Sometimes we learn through the use of imagination. The epistemology of imagination asks how this is possible. One barrier to progress on this question has been a lack of agreement on how to characterize imagination; for example, is imagination a mental state, ability, character trait, or cognitive process? This paper argues that we should characterize imagination as a cognitive ability, exercises of which are cognitive processes. Following dual process theories of cognition developed in cognitive science, the set of imaginative processes is then divided into two kinds: one that is unconscious, uncontrolled, and effortless, and another that is conscious, controlled, and effortful. This paper outlines the different epistemological strengths and weaknesses of the two kinds of imaginative process, and argues that a dual process model of imagination helpfully resolves or clarifies issues in the epistemology of imagination and the closely related epistemology of thought experiments.

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On the Identity of Thought Experiments

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Form and Content: A Defense of Aesthetic Value in Science

Form and Content: A Defense of Aesthetic Value in Science

Armchair physics and the method of cases

Towards a dual process epistemology of imagination

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