Thought Experiments In Science Research Articles

Mélanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell, and James R. Brown, eds. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and the Arts. London: Routledge, 2013. Pp. xiv+268. $140.00 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewMélanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell, and James R. Brown, eds. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and the Arts. London: Routledge, 2013. Pp. xiv+268. $140.00 (cloth).Darrell P. RowbottomDarrell P. RowbottomLingnan University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by HOPOS Volume 5, Number 2Fall 2015 Sponsored by The International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/682375 Views: 33Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

"Experiments of Pure Reason": Kantianism and Thought Experiments in Science

Marco Buzzoni has presented a Kantian account of thought experiments in science as a serious rival to the current empiricist and Platonic accounts. This paper takes the first steps of a comprehensive assessment of this account in order to further the more general discussion of the feasibility of a Kantian theory of scientific thought experiments. Such a discussion is overdue. To this effect the broader question is addressed as to what motivates a Kantian approach. Buzzoni's account and the assessment developed in this paper are warranted by the fact that the history of philosophical inquiry into thought experiments is deeply interwoven with Kant's philosophy. This history will be depicted here for the first time in more comprehensive terms to contextualize Buzzoni's account in historical and systematic perspective.

The role of imagistic simulation in scientific thought experiments.

Interest in thought experiments (TEs) derives from the paradox: "How can findings that carry conviction result from a new experiment conducted entirely within the head?" Historical studies have established the importance of TEs in science but have proposed disparate hypotheses concerning the source of knowledge in TEs, ranging from empiricist to rationalist accounts. This article analyzes TEs in think-aloud protocols of scientifically trained experts to examine more fine-grained information about their use. Some TEs appear powerful enough to discredit an existing theory-a disconfirmatory purpose. In addition, confirmatory and generative purposes were identified for other TEs. One can also use details in transcript data, including imagery reports and gestures, to provide evidence for a central role played by imagistic simulations in many TEs, and to suggest that these simulations can generate new knowledge using several sources, including the "extended application" of perceptual motor schemas, implicit prior knowledge, and spatial reasoning operations, in contrast to formal arguments. These sources suggest what it means for TEs to be grounded in embodied processes that can begin to explain the paradox above. This leads to a rationalistic view of TEs as using productive internal reasoning, but the view also acknowledges the historical role that experience with the world can play in forming certain schemas used in TEs. Understanding such processes could help provide a foundation for developing a larger model of scientific investigation processes grounded on imagistic simulation (Clement, 2008).

The Step to Rationality: The Efficacy of Thought Experiments in Science, Ethics, and Free Will

Examples from Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and others suggest that fundamental laws of physics were-or, at least, could have been-discovered by experiments performed not in the physical world but only in the mind. Although problematic for a strict empiricist, the evolutionary emergence in humans of deeply internalized implicit knowledge of abstract principles of transformation and symmetry may have been crucial for humankind's step to rationality-including the discovery of universal principles of mathematics, physics, ethics, and an account of free will that is compatible with determinism.

On Thought Experiments: Is There More to the Argument?

Thought experiments in science are merely picturesque argumentation. I support this view in various ways, including the claim that it follows from the fact that thought experiments can err but can still be used reliably. The view is defended against alternatives proposed by my cosymposiasts.

Imaginary Science

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview ArticlesImaginary Science1David GoodingDavid GoodingScience Studies Centre, University of BathBath, BA2 7AY, UK Search for more articles by this author 1Review of Roy A. Sorensen [1992], Thought Experiments, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, pp. xxii + 318; T. Horowitz and G. J. Massey (eds) [1991], Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, Savage, M. D., Rowman & Littlefield, pp. ix + 355; James Robert Brown [1991], The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences, London and New York, Routledge, pp. xi + 175.PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Volume 45, Number 4December 1994 Society: The British Society for the Philosophy of Science Views: 12Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Views: 12Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/45.4.1029 Views: 12Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref © 1994 by The Author. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Yiftach Fehige The Annus Mirabilis of 1986: Thought Experiments and Scientific Pluralism, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11, no.11 (Mar 2021): 222–240.https://doi.org/10.1086/712941Tamar Szabó Gendler Galileo and the Indispensability of Scientific Thought Experiment, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49, no.33 (Dec 2020): 397–424.https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/49.3.397

Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy.

Preface: This volume originated in a conference on Place of Thought Experiments in Science and which was organized by us and held at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, April 18-20, 1986. The idea behind this conference was to encourage philosophers and scientists to talk to each other about the role of thought experiments in their various disciplines. These papers were either written for the conference, or were written after it by commentators and other participants.... We hope that this volume will be of use to other philosophers and scientists who are interested in thought experiments, as well as inspire more work in this area....

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Book Reveiwed in this article:Tamara Horowitz & Gerald J. Massey (eds.), Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy