![]() The epistemic value of understanding has been marginalized for the better part of the twentieth century. Given this, and given the strong focus on knowledge production in the existing literature in philosophy of science, it might be worth paying closer attention to how understanding of theories and/or the phenomena in their domain is facilitated through TEs.Īs has been recently noted (Stuart 2018), such a shift in attention gains additional plausibility from recent work in mainstream philosophy of science and epistemology. Although it is certainly correct that some TEs were intended to facilitate knowledge about reality, more often than not TEs in science seem to have served other purposes, such as disclosing inconsistencies in existing theories or, perhaps even more important, making consequences of theories easier to understand. This might seem surprising, especially in light of the historical record. ![]() ![]() Looking back at the past three decades, the philosophical debate about thought experiments (“TEs”) is characterized by a strong focus on their alleged knowledge-producing powers (cf., for an overview, Brown and Fehige 2017). ![]()
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