Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Running thought experiments is a traditional method in philosophy and science. I will introduce a new model of the structure and dynamics of thought experiments on the basis of considerations about intersubjective coordinations between experimenters and experimental subjects. The model describes a hierarchy of experimental design and intersubjective interaction set up to set off certain changes in cognitive processing (also called, altercentric influences). The model promotes the view that thought experiments have methodological value because they are sui generis ways of influencing others’ cognitive processing to access unconsidered alternatives with respect to a target domain of knowledge. In particular, thought experiments are modeled as controlled dialectical procedures that involve a hierarchy with different layers of experimenter’s expectations (ranging from material to psychological and doxastic ones) and distinctive representational processes (like narrative encodings, fictional depictions and triggering of cognitive dispositions).

Contrary to the traditional individualistic view, according to the model, the experimental status of thought experiments is intersubjective, and their methodological value derives from setting up conditions for accessing unconsidered alternatives through altercentric cognitive influences. The (cognitive) outcomes of such influences are post-experimental, such that the procedure itself gets a well fit with a pluralistic account of the diversity in cognitive outcomes (e.g. judgments) that are elicited by them. In a nutshell, thought experiments are intersubjective exploratory procedures for generating altercentric cognitive influences.

In negative terms, the model is aimed to explain why thought experiments are hard to replicate and, therefore, why their methodological value does not rely on the reliability-by-replicability of their results. If the model works well, by analogy to exploratory experimental procedures in natural sciences, the methodological value of thought experiments relies on their exploratory value, which is described as independent from the reliability –or truth-tracking status– of the cognitive responses that they elicit; that amounts to say that their value, as experimental procedures, doesn’t depend on the empirical adequacy or truth of their (cognitive) outcomes. As a consequence, the debate between thought experimental philosophy (also called armchair philosophy) and experimental philosophy could be seen as orthogonal to the development of an account of the methodological value and experimental status of thought experiments.