What notion of possibility should we use in assessing scientific thought experiments?
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v4i1.543Mots-clés :
Thought experiments, nomological possibility, Maxwell’s demon, Einstein/Bohr photon box, evolution of thought experimentsRésumé
It is usually claimed that in order to assess a thought experiment (hereafter TE) we should assess the nomological possibility, or realizability in principle, of its scenario. This is undoubtedly true for many TEs, such as Bohr’s reply to Einstein’s photon box. Nevertheless, in some cases, such as Maxwell’s demon, this requirement should be relaxed. Many accounts of TEs fail in this regard. In particular, experimental and some mental model accounts are too strict, since they always require realizability in principle. This paper aims at analysing the notion of possibility at play in the scenarios of scientific TEs, and sheds some new light on their nature and function.Références
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BROWN, James Robert. 1986. Thought Experiments since the Scientific Revolution. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 1, 1–15.
BROWN, James Robert. 1993. Why Empiricism Won’t Work. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 271–279.
BUZZONI, Marco. 2010. Empirical Thought Experiments: A Transcendental-Operational View. Epistemologia, XXXIII, 5–26.
DAUB, Edward E. 1970. Maxwell’s Demon. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1, 213–227. Reprinted in LEFF and REX 2003, 44–58.
EARMAN, John, NORTON, John D. 1998. Exorcist XIV: The wrath of Maxwell’s demon. Part I. From Maxwell to Szilard. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. 29(4), 435–471.
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EINSTEIN, Albert, INFELD Leopold. 1938. The evolution of physics, Cambridge University Press.
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EL SKAF, Rawad, 2016, La Stucture des Expériences de Pensée Scientifiques. Doctorate dis. Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
FEYNMAN, Richard. P., LEIGHTON, Robert B, SANDS, Matthew. 1977. The Feynman lectures on physics, vol. I, original edition 1963. Boston: Addison-Wesley Publishing.
GENDLER, Tamar S. 1998. Galileo and the Indispensability of Scientific Thought Experiment. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 49(3), 397–424.
HACKING, Ian. 1993. Do Thought Experiments have a Life of Their Own? Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 302–308.
HEMMO, Meir and SHENKER, Orly. 2012, The Road to Maxwell’s Demon: Conceptual Foundations of Statistical Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HOWARD, Don. 1985, Einstein on Locality and Separability. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ,16, 171–201.
HOWARD, Don. 1990, “Nicht Sein Kann was Nicht Sein Darf,” or the Prehistory of EPR, 1909–1935: Einstein’s Early Worries about the Quantum Mechanics of Composite Systems. In Miller, Arthur I. (ed.) 1990, Sixty two years of uncertainty, : Historical, Philosophical, and Physical Inquiries into rhe foundation of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 61-111.
HUMPHREYS, Paul. 1993. Seven Theses on Thought Experiments. In EARMAN, John et al. (dir.). Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External World. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 205–227.
JAMMER, Max. 1974. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics in historical perspective. John Wiley and Sons.
KLEIN, Martin J. 1970. Maxwell, his Demon, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. American Scientist, 58, 84–97. Reprinted in LEFF and REX 2003, 59–72.
KNOTT, Cargill Gilston. 1911. Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
KUHN, Thomas. 1964. A function for thought experiments. Reprinted in The essential tension, T. Kuhn, 1977. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 240–265.
LAYMON, Ronald. 1991. Thought Experiments of Stevin, Mach and Gouy: Thought Experiments as Ideal Limits and as Semantic Domains. In HOROWITZ Tamara, MASSEY Gerald J. (dir.). Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 167–192.
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MAXWELL, James Clerk. 1871. Theory of heat. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
MYRVOLD, Wayne C. 2011. Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: A Maxwellian view. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B, 42 (4), 237–243.
NERSESSIAN, Nancy. 1993. In the Theoretician’s Laboratory: Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 291–301.
NERSESSIAN, Nancy. 1999. Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change. In NERSESSIAN N. et al. (ed.) Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery. Springer US. 5-22.
NORTON, John D. 1991. Thought Experiments in Einstein’s Work. In HOROWITZ Tamara, MASSEY Gerald J. (dir.). Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 129–148.
NORTON, John D. 2004. Why Thought Experiments Do Not Transcend Empiricism. In HITCHCOCK Christopher (dir.). Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 44–66.
NORTON, John D. 2005. Eaters of the lotus: Landauer’s principle and the return of Maxwell’s demon. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 36(2), 375–411.
NORTON, John D. 2013. All Shook Up: Fluctuations, Maxwell’s Demon and the Thermodynamics of Computation. Entropy, 15(10), 4432–4483.
SMOLUCHOWSKI, Marian V. 1912. Experimentell nachweisbare, der üblichen Thermodynamik widersprechende Molekularphänomene. Physikalische Zeitschrift, 13, 1069–1080.
SORENSEN, Roy A. 1992. Thought Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
WILKES, Kathleen V. 1988. Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BROWN, James Robert. 1986. Thought Experiments since the Scientific Revolution. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 1, 1–15.
BROWN, James Robert. 1993. Why Empiricism Won’t Work. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 271–279.
BUZZONI, Marco. 2010. Empirical Thought Experiments: A Transcendental-Operational View. Epistemologia, XXXIII, 5–26.
DAUB, Edward E. 1970. Maxwell’s Demon. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1, 213–227. Reprinted in LEFF and REX 2003, 44–58.
EARMAN, John, NORTON, John D. 1998. Exorcist XIV: The wrath of Maxwell’s demon. Part I. From Maxwell to Szilard. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. 29(4), 435–471.
EARMAN, John, NORTON, John.D. 1999. Exorcist XIV: The wrath of Maxwell’s demon. Part II. From Szilard to Landauer. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 30(1), 1–40.
EINSTEIN, Albert, INFELD Leopold. 1938. The evolution of physics, Cambridge University Press.
EL SKAF, Rawad, IMBERT, Cyrille. 2013, Unfolding in the empirical sciences: experiments, thought experiments and computer simulations. Synthese, 190(16), 3451–3474.
EL SKAF, Rawad, 2016, La Stucture des Expériences de Pensée Scientifiques. Doctorate dis. Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
FEYNMAN, Richard. P., LEIGHTON, Robert B, SANDS, Matthew. 1977. The Feynman lectures on physics, vol. I, original edition 1963. Boston: Addison-Wesley Publishing.
GENDLER, Tamar S. 1998. Galileo and the Indispensability of Scientific Thought Experiment. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 49(3), 397–424.
HACKING, Ian. 1993. Do Thought Experiments have a Life of Their Own? Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 302–308.
HEMMO, Meir and SHENKER, Orly. 2012, The Road to Maxwell’s Demon: Conceptual Foundations of Statistical Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HOWARD, Don. 1985, Einstein on Locality and Separability. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ,16, 171–201.
HOWARD, Don. 1990, “Nicht Sein Kann was Nicht Sein Darf,” or the Prehistory of EPR, 1909–1935: Einstein’s Early Worries about the Quantum Mechanics of Composite Systems. In Miller, Arthur I. (ed.) 1990, Sixty two years of uncertainty, : Historical, Philosophical, and Physical Inquiries into rhe foundation of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 61-111.
HUMPHREYS, Paul. 1993. Seven Theses on Thought Experiments. In EARMAN, John et al. (dir.). Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External World. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 205–227.
JAMMER, Max. 1974. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics in historical perspective. John Wiley and Sons.
KLEIN, Martin J. 1970. Maxwell, his Demon, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. American Scientist, 58, 84–97. Reprinted in LEFF and REX 2003, 59–72.
KNOTT, Cargill Gilston. 1911. Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
KUHN, Thomas. 1964. A function for thought experiments. Reprinted in The essential tension, T. Kuhn, 1977. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 240–265.
LAYMON, Ronald. 1991. Thought Experiments of Stevin, Mach and Gouy: Thought Experiments as Ideal Limits and as Semantic Domains. In HOROWITZ Tamara, MASSEY Gerald J. (dir.). Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 167–192.
LEFF, Harvey S., REX, Andrew. 2003. Maxwell’s Demon 2: Entropy, Classical and Quantum Information, Computing. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing.
LOSCHMIDT, Josef J. 1876. Über den Zustand des Wärmegleichgewichtes eines Systemes von Körpern mit Rücksicht auf die Schwerkraft I-IV. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. Mathematisch-Wissenschaftliche Klasse, 73, 128–142.
MAXWELL, James Clerk. 1871. Theory of heat. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
MYRVOLD, Wayne C. 2011. Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: A Maxwellian view. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B, 42 (4), 237–243.
NERSESSIAN, Nancy. 1993. In the Theoretician’s Laboratory: Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2, 291–301.
NERSESSIAN, Nancy. 1999. Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change. In NERSESSIAN N. et al. (ed.) Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery. Springer US. 5-22.
NORTON, John D. 1991. Thought Experiments in Einstein’s Work. In HOROWITZ Tamara, MASSEY Gerald J. (dir.). Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 129–148.
NORTON, John D. 2004. Why Thought Experiments Do Not Transcend Empiricism. In HITCHCOCK Christopher (dir.). Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 44–66.
NORTON, John D. 2005. Eaters of the lotus: Landauer’s principle and the return of Maxwell’s demon. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 36(2), 375–411.
NORTON, John D. 2013. All Shook Up: Fluctuations, Maxwell’s Demon and the Thermodynamics of Computation. Entropy, 15(10), 4432–4483.
SMOLUCHOWSKI, Marian V. 1912. Experimentell nachweisbare, der üblichen Thermodynamik widersprechende Molekularphänomene. Physikalische Zeitschrift, 13, 1069–1080.
SORENSEN, Roy A. 1992. Thought Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
WILKES, Kathleen V. 1988. Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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2017-07-12
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El Skaf, Rawad. 2017. « What Notion of Possibility Should We Use in Assessing Scientific Thought Experiments? ». Lato Sensu: Revue De La Société De Philosophie Des Sciences 4 (1). https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v4i1.543.
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