Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-n2sc8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-07T17:00:03.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Empiricism Won't Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

James Robert Brown
James Robert Brown*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Thought experiments present an enormous challenge to empiricism. So much so that some of us have (cheerfully) thrown in the towel and embraced good old fashioned platonism. I'll try to explain why, or at least, why one brand of empiricism won't work.

Type
Part IX. Thought Experiments: The Theoretician's Laboratory
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1992 , 1993 , pp. 270 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I wish to thank my co-symposiasts, David Gooding and Nancy Nersessian, and also several of my Toronto colleagues, especially Ian Hacking, my commentator, for their remarks on an earlier draft. I am also glad to acknowledge the financial help of S.S.H.R.C.

References

Brown, J. R. (1991), The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences, New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, J. R. (1993), Smoke and Mirrors: How Science Reflects Reality, New York and London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gödel, K. (1944), “Russell's Mathematical Logic”, reprinted in Benacerraf and Putnam (eds.). Philosophy of Mathematics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Gödel, K. (1947), “What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?”, in Benacerraf and Putnam (eds.). Philosophy of Mathematics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Galileo, , (1974), Two New Sciences, (Trans. from the Discorsi by S. Drake). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. S. (1964), “A Function for Thought Experiments”, reprinted in The Essential Tension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Leff, H. and A. Rex (eds.) (1990), Maxwell's Demon, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mach, E. (1960), The Science of Mechanics, (Trans by J. McCormack), sixth edition. LaSalle Illinois: Open Court.Google Scholar
Mach, E. (1976), “On Thought Experiments”, in Knowledge and Error, Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, J. C. (1871), Theory of Heat, London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Norton, J. (1991), “Thought Experiments in Einstein's Work”, T. Horowitz and G. Massey (eds.). Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. ·Google Scholar
Sorensen, R. (1992), Thought Experiments, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar