Galileo and the indispensability of scientific thought experiment

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3):397-424 (1998)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

By carefully examining one of the most famous thought experiments in the history of science—that by which Galileo is said to have refuted the Aristotelian theory that heavier bodies fall faster than lighter ones—I attempt to show that thought experiments play a distinctive role in scientific inquiry. Reasoning about particular entities within the context of an imaginary scenario can lead to rationally justified concluusions that—given the same initial information—would not be rationally justifiable on the basis of a straightforward argument.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

How to Reconstruct a Thought Experiment.Marek Picha - 2011 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 18 (2):154-188.
Experiments and thought experiments in natural science.David Atkinson - 2001 - Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 232:209-226.
Galileo vs Aristotle on free falling bodies.Markus Andreas Schrenk - 2004 - History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 7 (1):1-11.
Thought experiments rethought—and reperceived.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1152-1163.
Why Thought Experiments are Not Arguments.Michael A. Bishop - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (4):534-541.
When are thought experiments poor ones?Jeanne Peijnenburg & David Atkinson - 2003 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 34 (2):305-322.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
299 (#61,185)

6 months
14 (#114,294)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Tamar Gendler
Yale University

Citations of this work

How Imagination Informs.Joshua Myers - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
The Role of Explanation in Understanding.Kareem Khalifa - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1):161-187.
The Productive Anarchy of Scientific Imagination.Michael T. Stuart - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):968-978.
The Value of Surprise in Science.Steven French & Alice Murphy - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (4):1447-1466.
Thought Experiments: State of the Art.Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown - 2018 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 1-28.

View all 82 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1963 - [Notre Dame, Ind.]: University of Notre Dame Press.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.K. Popper - 1959 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 10 (37):55-57.
Models and Analogies in Science.Mary B. Hesse - 1966 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (3):190-191.

View all 43 references / Add more references