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This book offers a readable introduction to the main aspects of thought experimenting in philosophy and science (together with related imaginative activities in mathematics and linguistics). It presents the main options in understanding thought experiments, from empiricism to Platonism, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. However, it also provides some original perspectives on the topic. Firstly, it provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting. Secondly, it develops the author's earlier theory of “mental modelling”, proposed some decades ago by him, and some other researchers in the field as the crucial procedure in thought experimenting. The mental modelling approach links work with thought experimenting to cognitive science and to research on mental simulation which is a hot topic in present-day research. Thirdly, it proposes a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimentingby “experimental philosophers” as they have been dominating the present-day debates. The response suggests a possible ameliorative, self-help project for thought experimenting. Finally, the book provides a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy and thus connects, in an original way, the systematic investigation of experimenting to the historical work of famous thought experiments. It is of interest to scholars interested in history of ideas and philosophy of science.

The notion of the philosophical imaginary developed by Michéle Le Doeuff refers to the capacity to imagine as well as to the stock of images philosophers employ. Making use of this notion, Marguerite La Caze explores the idea of the imaginary of analytic philosophy. Noting the marked tendency of analytic philosophy to be unselfconscious about the use of figurative language and the levels at which it works, La Caze shows how analytic images can work to define the parameters of debates and exclude differing approaches, including feminist ones.La Caze focuses on five influential types of images in five central areas of contemporary analytic philosophy: analogies and how they are used in the abortion debates; thought experiments in personal identity; the myth of the social contract; Thomas Nagel's use of visual and spatial metaphors in epistemology; and Kendall Walton's use of children's games as a foundational model in aesthetics.The author shows how the image promotes assumptions and conceals tensions in philosophical works, how the image persuades, and how it limits debate and excludes ideas. In providing an analysis of and reflection on the nature of the analytic imaginary, La Caze suggests that a more open-ended and reflexive approach can result in richer, more fruitful, philosophical work.