| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Our Most Curious Device | p. 3 |
| The Instrument of Choice | p. 7 |
| Scientific Thought Experiments | p. 8 |
| The Bridge to Philosophical Thought Experiments | p. 11 |
| Analytic Philosophy's Commitment to Thought Experiment | p. 15 |
| Scepticism About Thought Experiments | p. 21 |
| Introspection on the Sly? | p. 21 |
| The Internal Horizon | p. 21 |
| Complaints About Introspection | p. 22 |
| The Parallel Plight of Thought Experiments | p. 26 |
| A Repackaged Appeal to Ordinary Language? | p. 41 |
| How the Appeal to Ordinary Language Is Supposed to Work | p. 42 |
| Strong Scepticism About the Appeal to Ordinary Language | p. 42 |
| Moderate Scepticism About the Appeal to Ordinary Language | p. 43 |
| Semantic Descent to Thought Experiments | p. 45 |
| Thought Experiments and the Dilemma of Informativeness | p. 46 |
| Mach and Inner Cognitive Africa | p. 51 |
| Instinctive Knowledge | p. 51 |
| The Continuum of Cognitive Bargain Hunters | p. 58 |
| Mach's Response to the Problem of Informativeness | p. 61 |
| Appraisal of Mach | p. 63 |
| What Mach Got Right | p. 63 |
| What Mach Got Wrong | p. 67 |
| The Wonder of Armchair Inquiry | p. 76 |
| The Pseudoanomaly | p. 76 |
| Modal Gap Illusions | p. 77 |
| How Thought Experiments Yield Modal Conclusions | p. 79 |
| Positive Theories of Armchair Inquiry | p. 88 |
| The Recollection Model | p. 88 |
| The Transformation Model | p. 92 |
| The Homuncular Model | p. 95 |
| The Rearrangement Model | p. 99 |
| The Cleansing Model | p. 104 |
| How Thought Experiment Corrects Imbalances | p. 104 |
| Theoretical and Practical Irrationality | p. 106 |
| An Eclectic View of the Mechanics of Thought Experiment | p. 109 |
| Kuhntradictions | p. 111 |
| Kuhn on the Received Opinion | p. 111 |
| Misfits | p. 112 |
| The Left Hand of Logic | p. 114 |
| Truth or Dare? | p. 116 |
| The Incoherence of Incoherent Concepts | p. 116 |
| Violation of Logical Conservatism | p. 119 |
| Reconstruction of Kuhn's Error | p. 122 |
| The Guts of Paradox | p. 122 |
| Conflationary Factors | p. 123 |
| The Phenomenology of Inconsistency | p. 127 |
| Counteranalysis of Kuhn's Cases | p. 128 |
| Taxonomic Prospects | p. 130 |
| The Logical Structure of Thought Experiment | p. 132 |
| Attributing Thought Experiments | p. 132 |
| Thought Experiments as Alethic Refuters | p. 135 |
| Necessity Refuters | p. 135 |
| The Five Responses to the Quintet | p. 136 |
| Summary of Necessity Refuters | p. 152 |
| Possibility Refuters | p. 153 |
| Summary of Possibility Refuters | p. 159 |
| The Identity Conditions for Thought Experiments | p. 160 |
| An Extension to Ordinary Experiments | p. 164 |
| The Big Picture | p. 165 |
| Conflict Vagueness and Precisification | p. 167 |
| General Features of Vagueness | p. 167 |
| Dueling Definitions | p. 168 |
| The Psychology of Conflict Vagueness | p. 168 |
| How Conflict Vagueness Creates the Mirage of Local Incoherence | p. 170 |
| Extensional Conflict Vagueness | p. 171 |
| Intensional Conflict Vagueness | p. 172 |
| Application of the Quintet Schema | p. 174 |
| Conceptual Reform | p. 175 |
| Eliminative Reactions to Conflict Vagueness | p. 180 |
| Tolerating the Vagueness | p. 180 |
| Extending the Analysis | p. 181 |
| Sunder, Enlighten! | p. 184 |
| The Evolution of Thought Experiment | p. 186 |
| 'Experiment' Defined | p. 186 |
| Stereotypical Features of Experiment | p. 186 |
| A Cognitive Aim Is Essential to Experiment | p. 189 |
| Execution Is an Optional Part of Experiment | p. 190 |
| The Progression from Experiment to Thought Experiment | p. 192 |
| Classifying Thought Experiments by Grounds for Inaction | p. 197 |
| Unimprovables | p. 197 |
| Unaffordables | p. 199 |
| Impossibles | p. 200 |
| The Immigration of the Supposition Operator | p. 202 |
| A Definition of 'Thought Experiment' | p. 205 |
| The Selectivity of the Definition | p. 206 |
| Stereotypical Features of Thought Experiments | p. 208 |
| Verbal Disputes over 'Thought Experiment' | p. 210 |
| Five Theses Recapitulated | p. 212 |
| Are Thought Experiments Experiments? | p. 216 |
| Systematically Misleading Expressions | p. 216 |
| Comparisons with Lookalikes | p. 218 |
| Imaginary Experiments | p. 218 |
| Fictional Experiments | p. 222 |
| Mythical Experiments | p. 224 |
| Models, Simulations, Reenactments | p. 225 |
| The Analogy with Ordinary Experiments | p. 228 |
| The Taxonomic Point of the Analogy | p. 229 |
| Points of Resemblance | p. 230 |
| Points of Difference | p. 241 |
| Bogus Points of Difference | p. 248 |
| A Lopsided Tally | p. 250 |
| Fallacies and Antifallacies | p. 252 |
| The Biological Baseline | p. 252 |
| Myths and Abuses | p. 254 |
| Fallacious Thought Experiments | p. 256 |
| Missupposition | p. 257 |
| Perspectival Illusions | p. 259 |
| Framing Effects | p. 261 |
| Biases of Thought Experiment | p. 261 |
| Jumping the If/Ought Gap | p. 269 |
| Overweighting Negative Thought Experiments | p. 271 |
| The Additive Fallacy | p. 272 |
| The Blindspot Fallacy | p. 273 |
| Antifallacies | p. 274 |
| General Characterization of Antifallacies | p. 274 |
| The Far Out Antifallacy | p. 277 |
| Strangeness In, Strangeness Out? | p. 284 |
| The Voyeur Antifallacy | p. 285 |
| The Kabuki Antifallacy | p. 286 |
| A Parting Comparison | p. 288 |
| Notes | p. 291 |
| Select Bibliography | p. 307 |
| Subject Index | p. 311 |
| Name Index | p. 315 |
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