Abstract
The paper addresses the question of the nature and limits of philosophical thought experiments. On the one hand, experimental philosophers are right to claim that we need much more laboratory work in order to have more reliable thought experiments, but on the other hand a naturalism that is too radical is incapable of clarifying the peculiarity of thought experiments in philosophy. Starting from a historico-critical reconstruction of Kant’s concept of the “experiments of pure reason”, this paper outlines an account of thought experiments in philosophy that tries to reconcile the thesis of a principled difference between scientific and philosophical TEs with the position of a methodological naturalism that does not admit any difference in kind between the methods of science and of philosophy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Kant’s claim of the purely formal or functional character of the a priori underlies many of the most classical interpretations of his philosophy, be they very critical of this functionality, as for example the idealistic ones, or in accord with it, as in the case of some Neo-Kantian developments and of Trendelenburg’s linguistic reading (which was influenced by the Aristotelian point of view: cf. Trendelenburg 1846).
In this connection reference must also be made to Yiftach Fehige’s neo-Kantian account of TEs (cf. Fehige 2012, 2013, Fehige and Stuart 2014). Unlike Buzzoni, Fehige rejects the universality and necessity of Kant’s a priori, but retains the idea that the a priori, as a constitutive element of the experience, is endowed with a contingent content which may be made explicit by TE. On this point, see Buzzoni 2013b, where Fehige’s account is critically examined.
References
Appiah KA (2008) Experimental philosophy. Proc Addresses Am Philos Assoc 82:7–22
Bridgman W (1927) The logic of modern physics. MacMillan, New York
Brown JR (2011) Laboratory of the mind. Thought experiments in the natural sciences, 2nd edn. Routledge, London
Bruno M, Mandelbaum E (2010) Locke’s answer to Molyneux’s thought experiment. Hist Philos Q 27:165–180
Buzzoni M (2008) Thought experiment in the natural sciences. An operational and reflexive-transcendental conception. Königshausen + Neumann, Würzburg
Buzzoni M (2013a) Thought experiments from a Kantian point of view. In: Brown JR, Frappier M, Meynell L (eds) Thought experiments in philosophy, science, and the arts. Routledge, London, pp 90–106
Buzzoni M (2013b) On thought experiments and the Kantian a priori in the natural sciences. A reply to Yiftach. Epistemologia 36:277–293
Buzzoni M (2016–forthcoming) Transcendental philosophy of thought experiments (Kant). In Brown JR, Fehige Y, Stuart M (eds) The Routledge companion to thought experiments. Routledge, London
Dancy J (1985) The role of imaginary cases in ethics. Pac Philos Q 66:141–153
Dennett DC (1991) Consciousness explained. Little Brown, Boston
Dennett DC (2013) Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking. Norton, New York
Fehige Y (2012) Experiments of pure reason‘. Kantianism and thought experiments in science. Epistemologia 35:141–160
Fehige Y (2013) The relativized a priori and the laboratory of the mind. Towards a neo-Kantian account of thought experiments in science. Epistemologia 36:55–73
Fehige Y, Stuart MT (2014) On the origins of the philosophy of thought experiments. The Forerun. Perspect Sci 22:179–220
Fischer E, Collins J (eds) (2015a) Experimental philosophy, rationalism, and naturalism. Rethinking philosophical method. Routledge, London
Fischer E, Collins J (eds) (2015b) Introduction. In: Experimental philosophy, rationalism, and naturalism. Rethinking philosophical method. Routledge, London, p 2–33
Fodor J (1964) On knowing what we would say. Philos Rev 73:198–212
Friedman M (1992) Kant and the exact sciences. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Haidt J, Baron J (1996) Social roles and the moral judgement of acts and omissions. Eur J Soc Psychol 26:201–218
Harré R, Wang HT (1999) Setting up a real ‘Chinese Room’: an empirical replication of a famous thought experiment. J Exp Theor Artif Intell 11:153–154
Haug MC (ed) (2014) Philosophical methodology: the armchair or the laboratory?. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Hauser L (2002) Nixin’ goes to China. In: Preston J, Bishop M (eds) Views into the Chinese room. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 123–143
Hull DL (1989) A function for actual examples in philosophy of science. In: Ruse M (ed) What the philosophy of biology is. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 309–321
Husserl E (1950) Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag
Kahnemann D (2011) Thinking fast and slow. Doubleday, Toronto
Kalin MG (1972) Kant’s transcendental arguments as Gedankenexperimente. Kant-Studien 63:289–328
Kühne U (2005) Die Methode des Gedankenexperiments. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M
Lichtenberg G Ch (1994) Schriften und Briefe. Zweiter Band. Sudelbücher I. Materialhefte, Tagebücher (ed. by W. Promies). 5th edn. Hanser, München
Mach E (1906) Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung, 2nd edn. Barth, Leipzig
Mach E (1933) Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung, 9th edn. Brockhaus, Leipzig
Norton J (1991) Thought experiments in Einstein’s work. In: Horowitz T, Massey GJ (eds) Thought experiments in science and philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield, Savage, pp 129–148
Norton J (1996) Are thought experiments just what you thought? Can J Philos 26:333–366
Ørsted HC (1920[1811]) First introduction to general physics. A prospectus of lectures in this science. In: Jelved K, Jackson AD, Knudsen O (eds) Selected scientific works of Hans Christian Ørsted. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 282–309
Peijnenburg J, Atkinson D (2003) When are thought experiments poor ones? J Gen Philos Sci 34:305–322
Poincaré H (1902) La science et l’hypothèse. Flammarion, Paris
Popper KR (1972) Conjectures and refutations, 4th edn. Routledge, London
Quine WVO (1960) Word and Object. M.I.T. Press, New York
Reichenbach H (1965) The theory of relativity and a priori knowledge. University of California Press, Berkeley
Schlick M (1969) Gesammelte Aufsätze 1926–1936. Olms, Hildesheim
Searle JR (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behav Brain Sci 3:417–424
Stuart MT (2014) Cognitive science and thought experiments. A refutation of Paul Thagard’s skepticism. Perspect Sci 22:264–287
Swain S, Alexander J, Weinberg J (2008) The instability of philosophical intuitions: running hot and cold on truetemp. Philos Phenomenol Res 76:138–155
Thagard P (2010) The brain and the meaning of life. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Thagard P (2014) Thought experiments considered harmful. Perspect Sci 22:288–305
Trendelenburg A (1846) Geschichte der Kategorienlehre. Bethge, Berlin
Weinberg JM (2009) On doing better, experimental-style. Philos Stud 145:455–464
Westphal KR (2004) Kant’s transcendental proof of realism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wilkes K (1988) Real people. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Williamson T (2007) The philosophy of philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford
Williamson T (2009) Replies to Ichikawa, Martin and Weinberg. Philos Stud 145:465–476
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Mike Stuart for many helpful comments and criticisms of an earlier draft of this article. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees for this journal and to the editors of the present issue for a number of useful criticisms and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Buzzoni, M. Thought Experiments in Philosophy: A Neo-Kantian and Experimentalist Point of View. Topoi 38, 771–779 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9436-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9436-6