Abstract
In this paper we address the classical but still pending question regarding Thought Experiments: how can an imagined scenario bring new information or insight about the actual world? Our claim is that this general problem actually embraces two distinct questions: (a) how can the creation of a just imagined scenario become functional to either a scientific or a philosophical research? and (b) how can Thought Experiments hold a strong inferential power if their structures “do not seem to translate easily into standard forms of deduction or induction”? (Bishop in Philos Sci 66(4):534–541, 1999). We contend that, in order to answer both questions, we should consider the relation between the creation of the imagined scenario and the inferential power of Thought Experiments. Specifically, we will analyze Thought Experiments from an eco-cognitive point of view as goal-oriented objects, explaining their inferential power considering their generation as the result of abductive cognition and the construction of an imagined scenario as a process of scientific modeling. This will lead us to consider the creation of a Thought Experiment as a case of sophisticated model-based abduction.
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Notes
- 1.
Actually, the reactions of appraisal and wonder are so common that who does not comprehends nor approves the definition of TEs as an extraordinary tool—as Gooding, for one—has to extensively justify his lack of enthusiasm (Gooding 2002).
- 2.
For the original version of Maxwell’s Demon firstly discussed in the letter to Peter Guthrie Tait in 1867 see Harman (1995, pp. 331–332, 2002, pp. 185–186) and the extended version in Maxwell (1872, pp. 308–309); for the references to Einstein’s Clock in a Box see Bohr (1949); for Newton’s Rotating Bucket, considered in 1687 Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, see the recent translation of Bernard Cohen, Anne Whitman and Julia Budenz, (Newton 1999).
- 3.
- 4.
For the reference of Galileo’s Falling Bodies see the translation of the 1638 text Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze attinenti alla mecanica ed i movimenti locali by Crew and De Salvio (1914); for Bohr argument against Einstein’s Clock in a Box see Bohr (1949); and for Gettier’s Problem, see Gettier (1963).
- 5.
For more reference on Einstein and Bohr’s argument on the clock in a box TE, cf. (Bohr 1949).
- 6.
See, for example, Galileo’s Falling Bodies in Crew and De Salvio (1914), Galileo’s TE on Inertia and Galileo’s Floating Boat in Galilei (1953); Newton’s Rotating Bucket in Newton (1999), Newton Cannonball or Orbital Cannon in Newton (1969); Einstein’s Elevator in Einstein (2009, p. 510), Einstein Clock in a box in Bohr (1949), Einstein’s Twins in Einstein (2002, p. 198).
- 7.
- 8.
Specifically, for its final definition, Galili considers Reiner and Gilbert’s claim that a “thought experiment is a design of thought that is intended to test and/or convince others of the validity of a claim” (Reiner and Gilbert 2000), judging it too inclusive. He evaluates Brown’s point of view too general, as it defined a TE “a special type of mental window through which the mind can grasp universal understandings” (Brown 1991a). Finally examining the modelist account “to perform a scientific thought experiment is to reason about an imaginary scenario with the aim of confirming or disconfirming some hypothesis or theory about the physical world” (Gendler 2004) Brown well exposes the fact that Gendler (as others who shared the modelist view, like Bishop and Nersessian), usually pays more attention to the creation of the imagined scenario in the TEs than to the features of their inferential structure.
- 9.
It is thanks to the GW-schema (cf. Gabbay and Woods 2005), that Gabbay and Woods criticize the so called AKM model of abduction. A primary gift provided by the GW-schema was the opening of the discussion about ignorance preservation but also about non-explanatory and instrumental abduction, considered as not intrinsically consequentialist. Magnani extensively illustrated non-explanatory and instrumental abduction, together with the classical AKM model, in Magnani (2009, Chap. 2), also providing some case studies.
- 10.
Notwithstanding the fact that many standard perspectives on abduction demand two properties, relevance and plausibility, which are presented as possessed by “every” kind of solution for an abductive problem, we should point out the context- and time- dependent character of these requirements, which is claimed by Magnani’s Eco-Cognitive model of abduction (Magnani 2015b). This results in the affirmation that irrelevance and implausibility not always are offensive to the performance of a good abductive reasoning. Magnani claims that, in general, we cannot be sure that our guessed hypotheses are plausible (even if we know that looking for plausibility is a human good and wise heuristic), indeed an implausible hypothesis can later on result plausible. Eventually, the plausibility of a guessed hypothesis results a trivial requirement and something similar can be said in the case of relevance. In the case of TEs, the agent performing an abduction select or generates what she thinks is the most plausible hypothesis, which depends on her knowledge and her beliefs at her time. Therefore, plausibility and relevance are deemed as strict requirements for the consideration of the guessed hypothesis primarily (and sometimes only) from the author’s point of view.
- 11.
- 12.
The difference between Craik’s examination of mental models and the “mental model account” of TEs proposed by Bishop, Nersessian and Gendler is extensively displayed in Johnson-Laird (2004).
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Arfini, S. (2016). Thought Experiments as Model-Based Abductions. In: Magnani, L., Casadio, C. (eds) Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38983-7_24
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