The Hidden Links between Real, Thought and Numerical Experiments

The scientist’s toolkit counts at least three practices: real, thought and numerical experiments. Although a deep investigation of the relationships between these types of experiments should shed light on the nature of scientific enquiry, I argue that it has been compromised by at least four factors: (i) a bias for the epistemological superiority of real experiments; (ii) an almost exclusive focus on the links between either thought or numerical experiments, and real experiments; (iii) a tendency to try and reduce one kind to another; and (iv) an excessive attention to the outputs of these types of experiments, more than to their processes. In this paper I support an unbiased triangular comparative analysis that focuses on the processes involved in real, thought and numerical experiments, and claim that all three types of experimentation are fundamental to scientific research. I do so by clarifying different notions of experimental processes, and by introducing a distinction between two varieties of mental simulation that play a role in them (i.e., mental models and imaginings). I then compare real, thought and numerical experiments in light of this distinction, showing their similarities, but also fundamental differences, which suggest that none of them is dispensable

Correction to: Introduction: New Perspectives on Philosophical Thought Experiments

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The heterogeneity of experiential imagination

Imagination is very often associated with the experienceable. Imagination is said to “re-create” conscious experiences. For instance, philosophers often talk of vision-like or audition-like imagination. How many varieties of experiential imagination are there, and how are they related? In this paper, we offer a detailed taxonomy of imaginative phenomena, based on both conceptual analysis and phenomenology, which contributes to answering these questions. First, we shall spell out the notion of experiential imagination as the imaginative capacity to re-create experiential perspectives. Second, we suggest that the domain of experiential imagination divides into objective and subjective imagination. In our interpretation, objective imagination comprises both sensory and cognitive imagination. In contrast, subjective imagination re-creates non-imaginative internal experiences of one’s own mind, including proprioception, agentive experience, feeling pain, and perhaps internal ways of gaining information about other types of mental states, such as sensory experience and belief. We show how our interpretation of the notion of subjective imagination differs from Zeno Vendler’s, who relies on an orthogonal distinction between two ways in which the self is involved in our imaginings. Finally, we show the relevance of our taxonomy for several important philosophical and scientific applications of the notion of imagination, including modal epistemology, cognitive resonance, mindreading and imaginative identification

The importance of being neutral : more on the phenomenology and metaphysics of imagination ; a reply to Anne-Sophie Brüggen

In this reply to Anne-Sophie Brüggen's comments to our target paper, we focus on three main issues. First, we explain that although our account of imaginative re-creation is in many respects metaphysically neutral, it allows for a taxonomy of imaginings that goes beyond mere phenomenological observations and pre-theoretical intuitions. Second, we defend our interpretation of the distinction between objective and subjective imagination and compare it with  Brüggen's own suggestions involving the notion of an empty point of view. Third, we insist that the notion of experiential perspective should be construed broadly and include cognitive or belief-like imagination

Philosophie cognitive

Jérôme Dokic, directeur d’étudesMargherita Arcangeli, doctorante 1. Perception, imagination et mémoire Le séminaire a porté surtout sur la perception et l’imagination (le thème de la mémoire sera traité plus en détail dans le séminaire de l’année suivante). Nous avons commencé par poser la question des analogies et différences entre ces trois capacités psychologiques. Leurs produits doivent-ils être considérés comme des « attitudes propositionnelles » (Russell), c’est-à-dire des relations à d..

Hypofractionated simultaneous integrated boost (IMRT-SIB) with pelvic nodal irradiation and concurrent androgen deprivation therapy for high-risk prostate cancer: results of a prospective phase II trial

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Management of the corpse with suspect, probable or confirmed COVID-19 respiratory infection \u2013 Italian interim recommendations for personnel potentially exposed to material from corpses, including body fluids, in morgue structures and during autopsy practice.

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Il posto delle favole

Over the past twenty years the expression “thought experiment” (Gedankenexperiment) has become part of the philosophical vocabulary. Galileo’s thought experiment on the fall of bodies is an example that shows how thought experimentation might be an important scientific tool in order to acquire new knowledge. Nonetheless, the epistemological validity of thought experiments is still questioned in the domains different from physics.The paper aims to investigate whether the thought experimentation is really proper to physics. For this sake, biology will be our testbed. The skeptical view on biological thought experiments, e.g. Snooks, implies that the thought experiment is not an experiment; it is just the copy of a real one.We adopt a more positive view, inspired by Bokulich and Lennox, and we apply it to some Darwinian thought experiments. This analysis points to the fact that, much alike thought experiments in physics, Darwin’s ones in biology test the non-empirical criteria of a theory. Therefore, we advance the hypothesis that even biological thought experiments participate to such a re-ordering of processes and mechanisms, as to push a theory beyond its time

Imagination Between Bats and Cats: Commentary on Langland-Hassan’s "Explaining Imagination"

The Brains Blo

Narratives and Thought Experiments: Restoring the Role of Imagination

International audienceImagination is typically invoked in accounting for our interaction with narratives. This idea has been recently undermined by Derek Matravers, who argues that consumers of narratives reason through manipulating mental models rather than through imagination. This point finds a nice parallelism in the debate on thought experiments. An influential account of the cognitive mechanisms underlying thought experimentation, the model-based approach, has it that the reasoning employed in thought experiments is closely related to the one used in the consumption of narratives and is based on mental models, which simulate the situations described in thought experimental narratives. Relying on a prominent view of imagination as a simulative attitude, this chapter distinguishes imagination from mental models by arguing that they are different kinds of phenomenon involving different kinds of mental simulation. The twofold aim is to show that Matravers appeals to a questionable definition of imagination and that the model-based approach fails to recognise the important role of imagination in thought experiments. The proposed view restores imagination to its pivotal role in our interactions with (fictional and non-fictional) narratives, including those involved in thought experiments. The resulting account opens the way for an analysis of the epistemic roles that imagination plays in science and the arts