What notion of possibility should we use in assessing scientific thought experiments?

Authors

  • Rawad El Skaf

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v4i1.543

Keywords:

Thought experiments, nomological possibility, Maxwell’s demon, Einstein/Bohr photon box, evolution of thought experiments

Abstract

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.

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Published

2017-07-12

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Research Paper

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

How to Cite

“What Notion of Possibility Should We Use in Assessing Scientific Thought Experiments?”. 2017. Lato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie Des Sciences 4 (1). https://doi.org/10.20416/lsrsps.v4i1.543.