Norton and the Logic of Thought Experiments

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• 作者：Michael T. Stuart
• 关键词：Empiricism ; Experimentalism ; John D. Norton ; Material theory of induction ; Thought experiments
• 刊名：Axiomathes
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：26
• 期：4
• 页码：451-466
• 全文大小：403 KB
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Philosophy
  Philosophy
  Ontology
  Linguistics
  Cognitive Psychology
  Logic
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-8390
• 卷排序：26

文摘

John D. Norton defends an empiricist epistemology of thought experiments, the central thesis of which is that thought experiments are nothing more than arguments. Philosophers have attempted to provide counterexamples to this claim, but they haven’t convinced Norton. I will point out a more fundamental reason for reformulation that criticizes Norton’s claim that a thought experiment is a good one when its underlying logical form possesses certain desirable properties. I argue that by Norton’s empiricist standards, no thought experiment is ever justified in any deep sense due to the properties of its logical form. Instead, empiricists should consider again the merits of evaluating thought experiments more like laboratory experiments, and less like arguments.