Motivating the History of the Philosophy of Thought Experiments

Introduction to a special issue of HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science on thought experiments. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the paper: By any measure, the literature on thought experiments is thriving. Since 1988, we count at least thirteen monographs, seven collected editions, and eight journal issues dedicated to thought experiments. The thought experiments section of philpapers.org (moderated by Magdalena Balcerak Jackson) has 476 entries, which is more than the semantic view of theories (124), inference to the best explanation (198), scientific representation (203), structural realism (280), incommensurability in science (406) and is equal to the discussion of natural selection as a whole (476). Obviously, it is a lively and on-going discussion. And yet, there is still a lot of work to do. Concerning the class of scientific thought experiments, the majority of papers either focus on specific scientific cases (Schrodinger’s cat is a case in point with 55 entries on philpapers.org), the thought experiments of a specific scientist (Einstein4 and Galileo5 attracting most of the attention), or the epistemology of scientific thought experiments in general. Lacking, however, are historical accounts of the philosophical discussion of scientific thought experiments. There are notable exceptions, but more work seems necessary for at least two reasons. The first is that the current philosophical literature has much to gain by a reappraisal of its origins (or so we claim). The notion that there is a single “pure origin” of any debate is dubious (see Foucault 1977). Nevertheless, by identifying the historical contingencies that caused the on-going debate to take the shape it did, we are in a better position to entertain other directions the current debate could go, and also to (re)appropriate forgotten insights. A second reason why we think that it is worthwhile to look back at the history of the philosophy of scientific thought experiments is that most of the existing historical work on thought experiments has focused on individual thought experiments or individual accounts of thought experiments. We might call this micro-level history. What we do not see is macro-level history: that is, historical discussions of the interaction between different philosophers (or philosophical accounts), over time. Macro-level history can provide insights that are invisible at the micro level

The Book of Job as a Thought Experiment: On Science, Religion, and Literature

This paper presents a philosophical critique of the proposal that the Book of Job is a theological thought experiment about divine providence. Eight possible objections are entertained. They guide the discussion of the proposal. It is concluded that the proposal has more merits than perils

Introduction: God out of Mind

This Special Issue of Religions is about the encounter between thought experiments and theology [...

Motivating the History of the Philosophy of Thought Experiments

Introduction to a special issue of HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science on thought experiments. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the paper: By any measure, the literature on thought experiments is thriving. Since 1988, we count at least thirteen monographs, seven collected editions, and eight journal issues dedicated to thought experiments. The thought experiments section of philpapers.org (moderated by Magdalena Balcerak Jackson) has 476 entries, which is more than the semantic view of theories (124), inference to the best explanation (198), scientific representation (203), structural realism (280), incommensurability in science (406) and is equal to the discussion of natural selection as a whole (476). Obviously, it is a lively and on-going discussion. And yet, there is still a lot of work to do. Concerning the class of scientific thought experiments, the majority of papers either focus on specific scientific cases (Schrodinger’s cat is a case in point with 55 entries on philpapers.org), the thought experiments of a specific scientist (Einstein4 and Galileo5 attracting most of the attention), or the epistemology of scientific thought experiments in general. Lacking, however, are historical accounts of the philosophical discussion of scientific thought experiments. There are notable exceptions, but more work seems necessary for at least two reasons. The first is that the current philosophical literature has much to gain by a reappraisal of its origins (or so we claim). The notion that there is a single “pure origin” of any debate is dubious (see Foucault 1977). Nevertheless, by identifying the historical contingencies that caused the on-going debate to take the shape it did, we are in a better position to entertain other directions the current debate could go, and also to (re)appropriate forgotten insights. A second reason why we think that it is worthwhile to look back at the history of the philosophy of scientific thought experiments is that most of the existing historical work on thought experiments has focused on individual thought experiments or individual accounts of thought experiments. We might call this micro-level history. What we do not see is macro-level history: that is, historical discussions of the interaction between different philosophers (or philosophical accounts), over time. Macro-level history can provide insights that are invisible at the micro level

The Body, Thought Experiments, and Phenomenology

An explorative contribution to the ongoing discussion of thought experiments. While endorsing the majority view that skepticism about thought experiments is not well justified, in what follows we attempt to show that there is a kind of “bodiliness” missing from current accounts of thought experiments. That is, we suggest a phenomenological addition to the literature. First, we contextualize our claim that the importance of the body in thought experiments has been widely underestimated. Then we discuss David Gooding's work, which contains the only explicit recognition of the importance of the body to understanding thought experiments. Finally, we introduce a phenomenological perspective of the body, which will give us the opportunity to sketch the power and promise of a phenomenological approach to thought experiment