Introduction: New Perspectives on Philosophical Thought Experiments

Philosophical Thought Experiments, Intuitions, and Cognitive Equilibrium

There is a noted passage in the history of Greece, which may serve for our present purpose. Themistocles told the Athenians, that he had form’d a design, which wou’d be highly useful to the public, but which ’twas impossible for him to communicate to them without ruining the execution, since its success depended entirely on the secrecy with which it shou’d be conducted. The Athenians, instead o...

Philosophical thought experiments : in or out of the armchair ?

It is not easy to say what a thought experiment (TE) in science is and what role it is supposed to play: is it essentially an experiment or essentially an exercice in thought? There are, however, clear examples: Galileo’s reasoning about motion, Newton’s bucket, Einstein’s elevator, Schrödinger’s cat, etc. TE seem to have their proper home in philosophy, which is widely held to be a discipline ...

Philosophical Thought Experiments as Excercises in Conceptual Analysis

In the paper, I defend the viability and importance of conceptual analysis to philosophical inquiry. My argument proceeds in two steps. In a first step, I argue that we rely on the notions guiding how we do and would apply our terms in order to evaluate the counterfactual conditionals we find at the heart of philosophical thought-experiments. In a second step, I argue that our notions determine...

Functions in Biological and Artificial Worlds: Comparative Philosophical Perspectives (Introduction)

Philosophical Perspectives

Philosophical perspectives are worldviews that define the nature of the world, the individual’s place in it, and the possible relationships to that world and its parts. Learning and instructional theories are developed with respect to a particular set of assumptions regarding what it means to know and learn. It is our contention that when situational variables require some decision on the part ...