What Are We to Think about Thought Experiments?

Argumentation 17 (2):203-217 (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Arguments from thought experiment ask the reader to imagine some hypothetical, sometimes exotic, often fantastic, scenario for the sake of illustrating or countering some claim. Variously characterized as mental experimentation, imaginary cases, and even crazy cases, thought experiments figure into both scientific and philosophical arguments. They are often criticized for their fictive nature and for their lack of grounding. Nevertheless, they are common especially in arguments in ethics and philosophy of mind. Moreover, many thought experiments have spawned variations that attempt to both affirm and refute their original arguments. These emended thought experiments exhibit a variety of styles, details, and embellishments. A rhetorical analysis of these variations suggests a reciprocal influence between the arguers' selection of details and their philosophical commitments. I offer examples of this relationship from the variations on John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment and Judith Thomson's unconscious violinist thought experiment

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Why Thought Experiments are Not Arguments.Michael A. Bishop - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (4):534-541.
Empirical thought experiments: A trascendental-operational view.Buzzoni Marco - 2010 - Epistemologia. An Italian Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33:05-26.
Backdoor analycity.Gerald J. Massey - 1991 - In Tamara Horowitz & Gerald J. Massey (eds.), Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Thought experiments.Roy A. Sorensen - 1992 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Brown and Berkeley.Ksenija Puškarić - 2007 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (2):177-180.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-11

Downloads
124 (#135,233)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Thought Experiments.Yiftach J. H. Fehige & James R. Brown - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 25 (1):135-142.
The logic of Searle’s Chinese room argument.Robert I. Damper - 2006 - Minds and Machines 16 (2):163-183.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Minds, brains, and programs.John Searle - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3):417-57.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.

View all 40 references / Add more references