Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Thought Experiments - Roy A. Sorensen

Thought Experiments

By: Roy A. Sorensen

eText | 29 October 1998

At a Glance

eText


$123.21

or 4 interest-free payments of $30.80 with

 or 

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.
Can merely thinking about an imaginary situation provide evidence for how the world actually is--or how it ought to be? In this lively book, Roy A. Sorensen addresses this question with an analysis of a wide variety of thought experiments ranging from aesthetics to zoology. Presenting the first general theory of thought experiment, he sets it within an evolutionary framework and integrates recent advances in experimental psychology and the history of science, with special emphasis on Ernst Mach and Thomas Kuhn.
Sorensen explores what thought experiments are, how they work, and what their virtues and vices are. In his view, philosophy differs from science in degree, but not in kind. For this reason, he claims, it is possible to understand philosophical thought experiments by concentrating on their resemblance to scientific relatives. Sorensen assesses the hazards of thought experiments and grants that there are interesting ways in which the method leads us astray, but attacks most scepticism about thought experiments as arbitrary. He maintains that they should be used--as they generally are--as part of a diversified portfolio of techniques, creating a network of cross-checks that make for impressive reliability.
on
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

More in Epistemology & The Theory of Knowledge

Is God a Mathematician? - Mario Livio

eBOOK

Technics and Enaction : A Philosophy of Imagination - Dr Émilien Dereclenne

eBOOK

Deception : Mind, Metaphor, Memes, and Mimicry Machines - Professor of Linguistics and English Rukmini Bhaya Nair

eBOOK

Feminism Enchanted - Yanbing Er

eBOOK

RRP $59.11

$53.99

The Book of Memory : Or, How to Live Forever - Mark Rowlands

eBOOK