Overview
Provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting
Shows a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimenting and a self-help project for practicing
Proposes a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
- Aspects of Thought Experimenting in Philosophy and Science
- Platonism on Understanding Thought-Experiments
- Thought Experimenting and Laboratory Experimenting
- Miscevic on Mental Modelling
- Experimental Philosophers on Thought Experimenting
- Systematic Investigation of Famous Thought Experiments
- The Mental Modelling Approach and Research on Mental Simulation
About this book
This book offers a readable introduction to the main aspects of thought experimenting in philosophy and science (together with related imaginative activities in mathematics and linguistics).
It presents the main options in understanding thought experiments, from empiricism to Platonism, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. However, it also provides some original perspectives on the topic. Firstly, it provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting. Secondly, it develops the author’s earlier theory of “mental modelling”, proposed some decades ago by him, and some other researchers in the field as the crucial procedure in thought experimenting. The mental modelling approach links work with thought experimenting to cognitive science and to research on mental simulation which is a hot topic in present-day research. Thirdly, it proposes a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimenting by “experimental philosophers” as they have been dominating the present-day debates. The response suggests a possible ameliorative, self-help project for thought experimenting.
Finally, the book provides a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy and thus connects, in an original way, the systematic investigation of experimenting to the historical work of famous thought experiments. It is of interest to scholars interested in history of ideas and philosophy of science.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Nenad Miscevic is Professor of philosophy at the Philosophical faculty in Maribor, Slovenia, and has been, until this year, Regular Visiting Professor at Central European University Budapest. He also taught as guest professor at Universities of Geneva, Trieste and Klagenfurt. He studied philosophy in Zagreb, Chicago, Paris and Ljubljana, where he defended his doctorate thesis. He has been President of European Society of Analytic Philosophy and has held presidential functions in philosophical societies of his home country.
He has published a number of books in Croatian and three books in English, two in semantics and one in political philosophy and has been contributing to volumes on thought experiments, most recently to the Routledge Handbook of Thought experiments.Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Thought Experiments
Authors: Nenad Miscevic
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81082-5
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-81081-8Published: 30 September 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-81082-5Published: 29 September 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 130
Number of Illustrations: 8 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Philosophical and Historical Foundations of Science, Analytic Philosophy