Thought Experiments Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
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- First-Person Methodologies, Wittgenstein, Later Wittgenstein, Thought-Experiments
- by Johannes Franzen
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- American Literature, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Literature

Artificial intelligence is often portrayed in science fiction as conscious and humanlike. We explore this phenomenon by analyzing mostly recent TV series and movies in the context of philosophical issues such as the problem of other minds, cognitive theories (computationalism and connectionism), thought experiments such as the Turing Test, the Chinese room, the brain in a vat, what is it like to be a bat and Mary's room. After discussing if direct access to an AI's mind is possible and useful in terms of determining its (un)conscious status, we compare fictional AIs to their human counterparts in terms of relationships, emotions, physicality, and mortality, which ultimately leads to considering the non-humanity of consciousness outside an anthropocentric viewpoint.

- by Mateusz Sawczyn
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- Artificial Intelligence, Film Studies, Television Studies, SF Film and Television

I argue that the UK Government was right not to publish guidelines on who would have priority for ventilation when these were not needed; and drawing a distinction between settled policies and emergency ones, go on to argue that thought... more

- by Richard Holton
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- Medical Ethics, Thought Experiments

Films have been claimed to play the role of philosophical thought experiments. Thought experiments use hypothetical scenarios to motivate certain philosophical conclusions, so the hypothetical scenarios depicted in films can, it is claimed, perform much the same role. A complication with this proposal is that the role of thought experiments in philosophy is itself contentious. Worries have been raised about whether thought experiments are characteristic of philosophical thinking and whether they are capable of justifying philosophical conclusions. These worries complicate the analogy between film and thought experiment in at least two ways. First, if thought experiments are not characteristic of philosophy then the intellectual contributions of film may fail to be distinctively philosophical. I overcome this worry by using subject matter as a criterion of philosophical thought experiment. Second, there are difficulties with the claim that thought experiments can warrant philosophical conclusions. If thought experiments are bad tools for doing philosophy, then it seems film can only make bad contributions to philosophy. I suggest that the putative limitations of thought experiments are surmountable, and that film may be especially well-placed to surmount them.

- by Hatice Acar
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- Science Education, Conceptual Metaphor, Thought-Experiments, Physics Education
- by Siyi Li
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- Philosophy, Paradoxes, Thought Experiments

Csonta Réka: Valláspedagógiai kalandozások Roman Globokar: A gyermekek érzelmi és társadalmi fejlődé- se a digitális korban Csonta István: Az elbeszélt történelem vagy oral history hatása az egyháztörténelem tanításában Veres Stelian:... more

- by Gusztáv Kovács and +2
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- Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Education

Thought experiments play an important epistemic, rhetorical and didactic function in Galileo’s dialogues. In some cases, Salviati, Sagredo and Simplicio agree about what would happen in an imaginary scenario and try to understand whether the predicted outcome is compatible with their respective theoretical assumptions. There are, however, also situations in which the predictions of the three interlocutors turn out to be theory-laden. Salviati, Sagredo and Simplicio not only disagree about what would happen, but they reject each other’s solutions as question-begging and sometimes even dismiss each other’s thought experiments as misleading or nonsensical.

- by Joachim Horvath
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- Experimental philosophy, Intuition, Thought-Experiments, Thought Experiments

How do we come to know metaphysical truths? How does metaphysical inquiry work? Are metaphysical debates substantial? These are the questions which characterize metametaphysics. This book, the first systematic student introduction dedicated to metametaphysics, discusses the nature of metaphysics - its methodology, epistemology, ontology and our access to metaphysical knowledge. It provides students with a firm grounding in the basics of metametaphysics, covering a broad range of topics in metaontology such as existence, quantification, ontological commitment and ontological realism. Contemporary views are discussed along with those of Quine, Carnap and Meinong. Going beyond the metaontological debate, thorough treatment is given to novel topics in metametaphysics, including grounding, ontological dependence, fundamentality, modal epistemology, intuitions, thought experiments and the relationship between metaphysics and science. The book will be an essential resource for those studying advanced metaphysics, philosophical methodology, metametaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of science.

- by Tuomas E Tahko
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- Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science

Experimental ethicists investigate traditional ethical questions with non-traditional means, namely with the methods of the empirical sciences. Studies in this area have made heavy use of philosophical thought experiments such as the well-known trolley cases. Yet, the specific function of these thought experiments within experimental ethics has received little consideration. In this paper we attempt to fill this gap. We begin by describing the function of ethical thought experiments, and show that these thought experiments should not only be classified according to their function but also according to their scope. On this basis we highlight several ways in which the use of thought experiments in experimental ethics can be philosophically relevant. We conclude by arguing that experimental philosophy currently only focuses on a small subcategory of ethical thought experiments and suggest a broadening of its research agenda.

- by Thomas Pölzler
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- Experimental philosophy, Thought Experiments
- by Bartosz Brozek
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- Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Critical Thinking

This paper attempts to argue for a defense of Frank Jackson's seminal Knowledge Argument against metaphysical materialism. By first presenting the argument and then directly responding to notable objections from philosophical academia, I seek to demonstrate not that Jackson's argument is certainly sound in its refutation of materialism, but that the degree of confidence with which his premises imply his conclusion ultimately establish a form of property dualism as more philosophically tenable and likely than any variant of materialism.

- by Seth Carter
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- Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology

This chapter discusses the reception of Avicenna’s well-known “flying man” thought experiment in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin philosophy. The central claim is that the argumentative role of the thought experiment changed radically in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The earlier authors—Dominicus Gundissalinus, William of Auvergne, Peter of Spain, and John of la Rochelle—understood it as an ontological proof for the existence and/or the nature of the soul. By contrast, Matthew of Aquasparta and Vital du Four used the flying man as an argument for the soul’s ability to be directly aware of itself. A detailed analysis of the views of these authors shows interesting philosophical differences between them and reveals how one of the crucial premises of the original thought experiment—namely that the flying man is unaware of his body—loses its importance due to the changes in the argumentative role that is assigned to it. The most radical example of a new way of understanding bodily self-awareness is Peter Olivi’s so-called ‘man before the creation.’

- by Juhana Toivanen
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- Intellectual History, Medieval Philosophy, Thought Experiments, Avicenna

"Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy: on the Possibility of a Transdisciplinary Approach". For various thought experiments in science and philosophy to be
treated in a similar manner, a unified theory of thought experiment is required, one that deals with an uncontroversial concept and general criteria of validity. The absence of such a theory in specialized circles led to the existing gap between the philosophical concept
of thought experiment and its scientific one. The present article dives into the history of the concept to identify the beliefs that prevented the development of a unified theory
and to discuss the conditions that make it possible.
Keywords: hypothetical thinking, thought experiment as experiment, thought experiment as argument, Galileo’s falling bodies, Plato’s cave, brain in a vat.

- by Mona Mamulea
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- Thought Experiments
- by Michael T Stuart
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- Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of Biology, Empiricism

The scholarship on Tom Stoppard’s theatrical engagement with philosophy has glossed over the playwright’s unique choice to use both analytic philosophers as characters and analytic methodology in his dramaturgy. This article, considering the 2013 radio drama DARKSIDE, argues that Stoppard creates a uniquely analytic dramatic and theatrical universe in his “analytic plays,” which include Jumpers and THE HARD PROBLEM. DARKSIDE imagines Philippa Foot’s famed “trolley problem” thought experiment, a cornerstone in analytic ethics, with one character existing in an abstract “thought experiment universe” that tests the longstanding distinction between “physical/mental” and “body/mind.” In so doing, Stoppard creates new avenues for collaboration among analytic philosophy, drama, and theatre.

- by Brice Ezell
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- Analytic Philosophy, Modern Drama, Thought Experiments, Radio Drama

This volume brings together science fiction, history, visual art, and exploration. Inspired by the literary ‘dare’ that would give birth to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein amidst the aftermath of a massive volcanic eruption, and today, by the... more

- by Dehlia Hannah
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- Oceanography, Aesthetics, Romanticism, Volcanology

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 knowledge, so works of literary fiction can too. This paper concedes that works of literary fiction can be put to use in thought experiments, but not in a way that is helpful to the cognitivist. In particular, it draws three disanalogies in the ways we engage critically with thought experiments and with literary fictions. First, we use thought experiments to make arguments; second, we read thought experiments in strongly allegorical terms; and third, the terms of criticism we apply to thought experiments and to works of literature differ. Although these disanalogies present problems for the cognitivist position, they also give us a sharper picture of the distinctive educative potential of works of literary fiction.

- by David Egan
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- Aesthetics, Philosophy of Literature, Thought Experiments

Science-fiction comics and graphic novels portray realistic scenarios of how our cities may evolve. These are based on the extrapolation of present trends as well as speculation, “what if” scenarios that can inform us about past, present and future. The objective of this paper is to study these and assess how they can change the way we think about future cities in design. This will be achieved by studying 15 comics and applying a four matrices onto them. A spatiotemporality matrix will be applied as well as a thematic matrix which will be a first comparative analysis to understand how these worlds are constructed. A city type matrix and a matrix of extrapolation and speculation will form a second comparative analysis which will determine what we can learn from the types of cities depicted as well as the methods to reach them.

- by Maxime Downe
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- Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy, Architecture, Posthumanism

Essay is a development of the author’s talk, “Mosque as Metaphor” delivered at The Hall of Philosophy, Chautauqua Institution, New York, on July 27, 2000. “Ka’ba, in Arabic, means the “cube” and also “a shape that emerges”— both the form... more

- by H. Masud Taj
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- Abrahamic Religions, Installation Art, Architecture Typology, Thought Experiments

Sentence by sentence, works of fiction are not beholden to norms of truth. However, many who appreciate literature agree that it has things to teach us, and not just to the extent that it approximates journalism. This essay offers a model of fiction according to which many such works behave as suppositions for the sake of argument, but differ from everyday suppositions according to the norms associated with various literary genres. This model shows how fiction can justify rather than just espouse propositions, thereby explaining a connection with knowledge. In addition, the model explains the extent to which we rightly rely on the firsthand experience of authors, who in spite of producing fiction are treated as sources of testimonial knowledge.

- by Mitch Green
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- Aesthetics, Testimony, Contemporary Fiction, Genre Theory

CONTENTS
Preface i
Chapter I
The Story in Your Head: Tomoceuszkakatiti and Gyugyu 1
Chapter II
How Thought Experiments Move Us: The Samaritan and His Neighbours 16
Chapter III
What Makes a Thought Experiment? 34
Chapter IV
Thought Experiments in Practical Philosophy and Bioethics 75
Chapter V
The Experience Machine 93
Chapter VI
The Last Man Argument 129
Chapter VII
The Trolley Problem 158
Chapter VIII
The Violinist Analogy 213
Conclusion 246
Notes 248

- by Gusztáv Kovács
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- Anthropology, Philosophy, Ethics, Applied Ethics

Why there has been for so long time no Kantian point of view among the most influential theories about thought experiments? The main historical reason – the main trends in philosophy of science rejected the existence of a priori knowledge – fits a theoretical reason. Kant oscillated between two very different views about the a priori: on the one side, he attributed to it a particular content, whereas on the other side he insisted on its purely formal character. The first interpretation of the a priori was one-sidedly developed by Ørsted’s and lead to his untenable notion of thought experiment. The other interpretation, however, can be further developed into a new theory of thought experiments in the natural sciences and in philosophy.

- by Marco Buzzoni
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- Immanuel Kant, Thought Experiments, Neo-Kantianism

This article presents an analysis of William Lane Craig’s argument of the finitude of the past based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite. To achieve the aim of this academic work we use, as a primary base, a book written by Craig called Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics and a chapter written by the same author along with James Sinclair called The Kalam Cosmological Argument in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. These works, in our opinion, provide sufficient primary material to study the topic. However, other articles and books by Craig are also referenced, and the commentaries of some other authors, who deal with this problem, are also used. Throughout this work, we consider the historical context and Craig’s incorporation of the kalam cosmological argument. We go on to analyse the presuppositions given by this author and consequently we study, progressively, the formulations that Craig himself made to reach his conclusion.

This article defends the use of fanciful examples within the method of wide reflective equilibrium. First, it characterizes the general persuasive role of described cases within that method. Second, it suggests three criteria any example must meet in order to succeed in this persuasive role; fancifulness has little or nothing to do with whether an example is able to meet these criteria. Third, it discusses several general objections to fanciful examples and concludes that they are objections to the abuse of described cases; they identify no special problem with fanciful examples.

- by Jason D Swartwood and +1
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- Metaphilosophy, Methodology, Thought Experiments, Wide Reflective Equilibrium

If we go on-line and just type “Einstein’s Train” on search engine, it will pop-up about 13 million articles related to that topic proving about enormous popularity of Einstein’s “thought” experiment.
The problem is that “Einstein’s Train” doesn’t have neither scientific, nor experimental significance, it is not even experiment at all, it cannot be realized practically because is based on vicious circle logic.

- by Rudolf Vrnoga
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- Physics, Theoretical Physics, Philosophy, Particle Physics
- by Taneli Kukkonen
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- Philosophy of Mind, Ibn Sina, Imagination, Thought-Experiments

This article supports claims that critical realism philosophy of science, as refounded in the hands of Roy Bhaskar, offers valuable knowledge enhancing insight into the advancement of Marx’s research program. However, it maintains that key principles set out by Bhaskar have not been adequately assimilated by those working with critical realism in the field of Marxist studies. When they are properly considered, they point to the necessity of reconstructing Marx’s corpus on a divergent basis from the conventional form it has assumed since the codification of “Marxism” by Karl Kautsky in the late nineteenth century as an overarching theory of history or historical materialism, wherein Marx’s economic studies in Capital are portrayed as but a subtheory. The article summarily breaks down three cardinal scientific principles elaborated by Bhaskar, which carry the most vital implications for Marxism. These are the bringing of ontology “back in” to theory construction, the robust case made for social science as a capital-S science, and the specification of retroduction as strategy for scientific discovery. It then explores the principles with regard to three abiding and interrelated questions of the Marxist research program: first is the very condition of intelligibility of economic theory; second is the question of the raison d’être for the dialectical architecture of Capital; third is the social scientific implications of the cognitive sequence in Marxism. In this endeavor the article introduces work in the Uno-Sekine tradition of Japanese Marxism. It shows how Uno’s reconstruction of Marxism is closely supported by Bhaskar’s fundamental criteria for science in a way that serves to strengthen Marx’s own scientific claims for his work.

- by Richard Westra
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- Economics, Political Economy, Ontology, Epistemology

In this paper, I discuss the similarity between Wittgenstein’s use of thought experiments and Relativity Theory. I begin with introducing Wittgenstein’s idea of “thought experiments” and a tentative classification of different kinds of thought experiments in Wittgenstein’s work. Then, after presenting a short recap of some remarks on the analogy between Wittgenstein’s point of view and Einstein’s, I suggest three analogies between the status of Wittgenstein’s mental experiments and Relativity theory: the topics of time dilation, the search for invariants, and the role of measuring tools in Special Relativity. This last point will help to better define Wittgenstein’s idea of description as the core of his philosophical enterprise.

- by Carlo Penco
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- Contextualism, Relativism, Wittgenstein, Special Relativity

A critical discussion of Ludwig Wittgenstein's writing on the topic of inverted spectrum thought experiments in both his manuscripts from the mid-1930s and section 272 of Philosophical Investigations, and the subsequent reception of those passages. The paper looks at the relationship of Wittgenstein's approach to this issue to the current literature on qualia inversion, and some of the responses Wittgenstein's discussion of the topic has generated. There is particular attention to work by Sydney Shoemaker, Ned Block, John Canfield, and P. M. S. Hacker, on Wittgenstein on spectrum inversion.

- by David Stern
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- Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Wittgenstein, Later Wittgenstein

John Locke is famous for popularizing the method of the philosophical thought experiment in discussions of personal identity; the cases introduced in the second edition of An Essay Concerning Understanding (1694) are still employed by contemporary philosophers. Here I argue that Locke's method was nonetheless importantly different from later efforts in ways that can help us better appreciate his larger projects. Rather than pumping the reader's intuitions in support of his preferred account, Locke's thought experiments serve to illustrate common errors in assessments of identity that were particularly prevalent and problematic. Locke defends his idea of 'person' otherwise, through what I call his 'lived experiments:' observations of about linguistic usage that serve to illustrate the term's role in moral reasoning. I focus especially on Locke's example of the forensic status of the madman. Examples like these do not, for Locke, demonstrate the intuitiveness of his analysis, but rather bolster his case that it is the right analysis, given his broader commitments. They serve to illustrate how Locke's preferred criterion for the identity of persons – sameness of consciousness – contributes to a demonstrative science of morality, while the rival account – sameness of substance – falls short.

- by Kathryn Tabb
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- 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, Locke, Personal Identity, John Locke
- by Tobias Wieland
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- John McDowell, Thought Experiments, Second nature
- by Zsuzsanna Balogh
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- Personal Identity, John Locke, Thought Experiments, Derek Parfit

In this paper I examine a fragment of Aristotle's lost DE PHILOSOPHIA (Ross 13A) preserved in book II of Cicero's De Natura Deorum. The passage is a thought experiment which owes much to the Allegory of the Cave in REPUBLIC VII. Subterranean people who have lived comfortable and well-furnished lives underground emerge to the surface, and upon witnessing various meteorological phenomena, they conclude that the heavens have "gods", about whom they had long heard rumors. This passage has been widely considered to be an early form of the teleological argument for the existence of god(s). If this is true, it have significant implications for the development of Aristotle's philosophy. I distinguish two kinds teleological arguments: arguments from design and 'deification arguments', and argue that the Subterraneans' Argument is neither. I defend the view that it is an illustration of Aristotle's views concerning the origins of the conception of "gods". I then argue that we should reject as inauthentic several supposed fragments of the De Philosophia that do contain arguments from design but for which there is no evidence of Aristotelian provenance.

- by Jason Rheins
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- Theology, Aristotle, Stoicism, Philo of Alexandria
- by Ümmüye Nur Tüzün
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- Thought Experiments
- by Manuel Scheidegger and +1
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- Film Studies, Social Philosophy, Martin Heidegger, Thought Experiments

Penser les effets de la fiction sur les individus et la société suppose de la considérer d’un point de vue pragmatique comme quelque chose qui opère dans et depuis le monde, d’étudier la façon dont les auteurs aujourd'hui la travaillent et dont elle travaille en retour ses lecteurs du point de vue des usages qu'ils en font. Que peut la littérature devant les pratiques de storytelling néolibéralistes dont l'objectif est d'inventer un concept-solution qui soit « actionnable », efficace en termes de like, de follow et de vente ? Elle peut en reconnaître la valeur instrumentale, en partager la confiance dans le pouvoir de la fiction d'agir sur le monde, puis s'en servir de levier à d'autres fins éventuelles. Nous verrons dans cette étude comment les fictions littéraires peuvent opérer sous forme d’enquêtes sur la vie pratique et les formes de vie individuelles et collectives, à la manière dont les expériences de pensée remplissent leur fonction heuristique.