What If? Thought Experimentation in Philosophy

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Thought Experimentation
	1. Suppositions
	2. Thought Experimentation
	3. The Need for Context
	4. Logical Aspects
	5. Uses of Thought Experiments
	6. Problems of Subjectivity
	7. Malfunction in Thought Experimentation
Chapter 2: Thought Experimentation in Science and History
	1. Scientific Thought Experiments
	2. Historical Thought Experiments
Chapter 3: Thought Experimentation in Philosophy
	1. Philosophical Thought Experiments
	2. Typification vs. Counterexampling
	3. A Philosophical Tool
	4. Analogy and Burden of Proof
Chapter 4: Thought Experimentation in Pre-Socratic Philosophy
	1. Thales of Miletus
	2. Anaximander of Miletus
	3. The Pythagoreans
	4. Xenophanes of Colophon
	5. Heraclitus of Ephesus
	6. Coda
Chapter 5: Some Classic Philosophical Thought Experiments
	1. Life is but a Dream (Plato's Dreamer)
	2. Plato and the Ring of Gyges
	3. Buridan's Ass
	4. Descartes' Deceiver
	5. Descartes' Wax
	6. Locke's Locked Room
	7. Locke's Changelings
	8. Leibniz's Mill
	9. Peirce's Stone
	10. James' Squirrel
	11. Chisholm's Changeling
	12. The Prisoner's Dilemma
	13. Some Lessons
Chapter 6: Aporetics and Cost-Benefit Analysis in Philosophical Thought Experimentation
	1. Counterfactuals
	2. Validating Counterfactuals
	3. The Weakest Link in Philosophical Aporetics
	4. Aporetic Clusters in Philosophy
	5. The Determinative Role of Systematicity Considerations
Chapter 7: Issues of Speculative Ontology
	1. The Difference between Actual and Merely Suppositional Objects and States of Affairs
	2. How Fictional Possibilities Differ from Real Things
	3. Impossible Objects
Chapter 8: Philosophically Instructive Paradoxes
	1. Paradoxes
	2. The Liar and His Cousins
	3. Russell's Paradox
	4. Goodman's GruelBleen Paradox
	5. The Role of Distinctions
	6. Reductio ad absurdum
	7. Thomson's Lamp as an Illustration of Reductio Reasoning
	8. Per Impossible Reasoning
Chapter 9: Outlandish Hypotheses and the Limits of Thought Experimentation
	1. Far-Fetched Hypotheses and Diminishing Returns
	2. Meaninglessness
	3. Suppositions that Go Too Far: Limits of Meaningfulness
	4. How Outlandish Hypotheses Pose Problems
	5. Use and Usage
	6. The Shipwreck of Conjectural Analysis in Philosophy
Chapter 10: On Overdoing Thought Experimentation
	1. Two Worlds
	2. Different Priorities
	3. A Fuzzy Boundary
	4. Reality Respect Endangered
Bibliography
Name Index