What If?: Thought Experimentation in Philosophy

by Rescher,Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9780765802927
• ISBN10: 0765802929
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Nicholas Rescher’s What If? undertakes a systematic survey of the role and utility of thought experiments in philosophy. After surveying the historical issues, Rescher examines the principles involved, and explains the conditions under which thought experimentation can validly yield instructive results in philosophy. The reader gains understanding of the differences between scientific and philosophical experiments.

Author Biography

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Thought Experimentation	1	(28)
Suppositions	1	(2)
Thought Experimentation	3	(6)
The Need for Context	9	(5)
Logical Aspects	14	(1)
Uses of Thought Experiments	15	(2)
Problems of Subjectivity	17	(4)
Malfunction in Thought Experimentation	21	(8)
Thought Experimentation in Science and History	29	(18)
Scientific Thought Experiments	29	(7)
Historical Thought Experiments	36	(11)
Thought Experimentation in Philosophy	47	(14)
Philosophical Thought Experiments	47	(5)
Typification vs. Counterexampling	52	(2)
A Philosophical Tool	54	(4)
Analogy and Burden of Proof	58	(3)
Thought Experimentation in Pre-Socratic Philosophy	61	(12)
Thales of Miletus	61	(2)
Anaximander of Miletus	63	(2)
The Pythagoreans	65	(1)
Xenophanes of Colophon	65	(2)
Heraclitus of Ephesus	67	(4)
Coda	71	(2)
Some Classic Philosophical Thought Experiments	73	(22)
Life is but a Dream (Plato's Dreamer)	73	(2)
Plato and the Ring of Gyges	75	(2)
Buridan's Ass	77	(2)
Descartes' Deceiver	79	(1)
Descartes' Wax	80	(1)
Locke's Locked Room	81	(1)
Locke's Changelings	82	(1)
Leibniz's Mill	83	(1)
Peirce's Stone	84	(2)
James' Squirrel	86	(1)
Chisholm's Changeling	87	(1)
The Prisoner's Dilemma	88	(1)
Some Lessons	89	(6)
Aporetics and Cost-Benefit Analysis in Philosophical Thought Experimentation	95	(16)
Counterfactuals	95	(1)
Validating Counterfactuals	96	(3)
The Weakest Link in Philosophical Aporetics	99	(2)
Aporetic Clusters in Philosophy	101	(4)
The Determinative Role of Systematicity Considerations	105	(6)
Issues of Speculative Ontology	111	(10)
The Difference between Actual and Merely Suppositional Objects and States of Affairs	111	(3)
How Fictional Possibilities Differ from Real Things	114	(3)
Impossible Objects	117	(4)
Philosophically Instructive Paradoxes	121	(16)
Paradoxes	121	(1)
The Liar and His Cousins	122	(1)
Russell's Paradox	122	(3)
Goodman's Grue/Bleen Paradox	125	(2)
The Role of Distinctions	127	(1)
Reductio ad absurdum	128	(3)
Thomson's Lamp as an Illustration of Reductio Reasoning	131	(1)
Per Impossible Reasoning	132	(5)
Outlandish Hypotheses and the Limits of Thought Experimentation	137	(24)
Far-Fetched Hypotheses and Diminishing Returns	137	(6)
Meaninglessness	143	(3)
Suppositions that Go Too Far: Limits of Meaningfulness	146	(4)
How Outlandish Hypotheses Pose Problems	150	(3)
Use and Usage	153	(2)
The Shipwreck of Conjectural Analysis in Philosophy	155	(6)
On Overdoing Thought Experimentation	161	(10)
Two Worlds	161	(2)
Different Priorities	163	(3)
A Fuzzy Boundary	166	(1)
Reality Respect Endangered	167	(4)
Bibliography	171	(6)
Name Index	177