Aarhus University Seal

Samuel Schindler and Pierre Saint-Germier publish "Are thought experiments 'disturbing'? The case of armchair physics"

Philosophical Studies, First Online (26 August 2019)

Abstract

Proponents of the “negative program” in experimental philosophy have argued that judgements in philosophical cases, also known as case judgements, are unreliable and that the method of cases should be either strongly constrained or even abandoned. Here we put one of the main proponent’s account of why philosophical cases may cause the unreliability of case judgements to the test. We conducted our test with thought experiments from physics, which exhibit the exact same supposedly “disturbing characteristics” of philosophical cases.

Link to article