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This paper argues in defence of sufficientarianism that there is a general flaw in the most common critiques against it. The paper lays out sufficientarianism and presents the problems of indifference, of outweighing priority, and of discontinuity. Behind these problems is a more general objection to the abruptness of the sufficiency threshold relying upon an assumption regarding arithmeticism about value. The paper argues that sufficientarians need not accept arithmeticism about value and that the commonly held critiques of sufficientarianism are in fact instances of the numbers fallacy pertaining to the construction of numerical counterexamples that gain intuitive traction from ‘empty numbers’ – numbers without meaningful content in reference to the view under investigation. The paper concludes that we should remain sceptical about such use of numerical counterexamples, and while this does not by itself prove sufficientarianism correct, it is an important and novel contribution to its justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Turing test has been studied and run as a controlled experiment and found to be underspecified and poorly designed. On the other hand, it has been defended and still attracts interest as a test for true artificial intelligence (AI). Scientists and philosophers regret the test's current status, acknowledging that the situation is at odds with the intellectual standards of Turing's works. This article refers to this as the Turing Test Dilemma, following the observation that the test has been under discussion for over seventy years and still is widely seen as either too bad or too good to be a valuable experiment for AI. An argument that solves the dilemma is presented, which relies on reconstructing the Turing test as a thought experiment in the modern scientific tradition. It is argued that Turing's exposition of the imitation game satisfies Mach's characterization of the basic method of thought experiments and that Turing's uses of his test satisfy Popper's conception of the critical and heuristic uses of thought experiments and Kuhn's association of thought experiments to conceptual change. It is emphasized how Turing methodically varied the imitation game design to address specific challenges posed to him by other thinkers and how his test illustrates a property of the phenomenon of intelligence and suggests a hypothesis on machine learning. This reconstruction of the Turing test provides a rapprochement to the conflicting views on its value in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most, if not all, philosophers agree that computers cannot learn what words refers to from raw text alone. While many attacked Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, no one seemed to question this most basic assumption. For how can computers learn something that is not in the data? Emily Bender and Alexander Koller (2020) recently presented a related thought experiment—the so-called Octopus thought experiment, which replaces the rule-based interlocutor of Searle's thought experiment with a neural language model. The Octopus thought experiment was awarded a best paper prize and was widely debated in the AI community. Again, however, even its fiercest opponents accepted the premise that what a word refers to cannot be induced in the absence of direct supervision. I will argue that what a word refers to is probably learnable from raw text alone. Here's why: higher-order concept co-occurrence statistics are stable across languages and across modalities, because language use (universally) reflects the world we live in (which is relatively stable). Such statistics are sufficient to establish what words refer to. My conjecture is supported by a literature survey, a thought experiment, and an actual experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author William Stukeley of Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life published in 1752 wrote: "... After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank thea, under the shade of some apple trees.he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself.." Newton seeing this apple fall formulated gravity and went on to show that the movement of the moon and planets and other heavenly bodies is due to the same force. What if Newton had instead seen Galaxies moving due to an expanding universe, would he have then wondered if the apple falling, and all movement is due to an expanding universe? This short essay introduces a simple thought experiment to analyze this possibility. It concludes that if such is the case the passage of time and the expansion of the universe is the one and the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies in experimental philosophy claim to document intuition variation. Some studies focus on demographic group-variation; Colaço et al. , for example, claim that age generates intuition variation regarding knowledge attribution in a fake-barn scenario. Other studies claim to show intuition variation when comparing the intuition of philosophers to that of non-philosophers. The main focus has been on documenting intuition variation rather than uncovering what underlying factor(s) may prompt such a phenomenon. We explore a number of suggested explanatory hypotheses put forth by Colaço et al. , as well as an attempt to test Sosa's claim that intuition variance is a result of people 'filling in the details' of a thought experiment differently from one another. We show (i) that people respond consistently across conditions aimed at 'filling in the details' of thought experiments, (ii) that risk attitude does not seem relevant to knowledge ascription, (iii) that people's knowledge ascriptions do not vary due to views about defeasibility of knowledge. Yet, (iv) we find no grounds to reject that a large proportion of people appear to adhere to so-called subjectivism about knowledge, which may explain why they generally have intuitions about the fake-barn scenario that vary from those of philosophers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Thought experiments have been used as an effective methodological approach to advance theory in numerous scientific fields. However, they are underutilized in organizational behavior (OB) and adjacent fields. Accordingly, we conducted a comprehensive and multidisciplinary literature review of thought experiments that entailed 174 sources in economics, psychology, marketing, medicine, sociology, finance, and other fields. We used insights from this literature review to define and describe the unique nature of thought experiments and offer a taxonomy of four main types based on a theory's development stage (i.e., early vs. late) and a study's theoretical goal (i.e., confirmation vs. disconfirmation). We also provide a decision‐making tree useful for evaluating whether conducting a thought experiment is beneficial for a particular research situation and which of the four types is most likely to produce a meaningful contribution. Then, we offer best‐practice recommendations for conducting thought experiments that address how to plan, execute, report results, and discuss implications. In addition, we demonstrate the potential of thought experiments by using the best‐practice recommendations to design and conduct a thought experiment in the domain of workplace allyship. Finally, we offer suggestions for future substantive research that would benefit from thought experiment methodology (i.e., diversity, equity, and inclusion; leadership; performance; selection and recruitment; teams; and turnover). Overall, our article offers a comprehensive review and recommendations that we hope will be a catalyst for using thought experiments to advance theory in OB and related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypothetical thought experiments allow researchers to gain insights into widespread moral intuitions and provide opportunities for individuals to explore their moral commitments. Previous thought experiment studies in virtual reality (VR) required participants to come to an on-site laboratory, which possibly restricted the study population, introduced an observer effect, and made internal reflection on the participants' part more difficult. These shortcomings are particularly crucial today, as results from such studies are increasingly impacting the development of artificial intelligence systems, self-driving cars, and other technologies. This paper explores the viability of deploying thought experiments in commercially available in-home VR headsets. We conducted a study that presented the trolley problem, a life-and-death moral dilemma, through SideQuestVR, a third-party website and community that facilitates loading applications onto Oculus headsets. Thirty-three individuals were presented with one of two dilemmas: (1) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pulling a switch and (2) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pushing a person onto train tracks. The results were consistent with those of previous VR studies, suggesting that a "VR-at-a-distance" approach to thought experiments has a promising future while indicating lessons for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michel-Antoine Xhignesse's book, "Aesthetics: 50 puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments," offers a unique approach to teaching philosophy. The book consists of brief chapters, each driven by a puzzle, thought experiment, or paradox, and supplemented with concise questions, answers, and complications. Xhignesse's writing is engaging and thought-provoking, making it suitable for classroom use. While some may find certain topics or puzzles omitted, the book covers a range of contemporary analytic aesthetics issues. Overall, "Aesthetics" is a valuable resource for students and instructors seeking to explore the curiosities of aesthetics. [Extracted from the article]

Described by the author as a "morphing book", John Miles Foley's Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind is an ambitious project that extends from the textual to the digital. Through a nonlinear reading, the book illustrates and explains to readers the various similarities and potential interactions "between humankind's oldest and newest thought technologies." Without traditional organization, the book invites readers to jump from section to section much like the way one might peruse a website -- and in fact was paired with the accompanying Pathways Project website (currently offline). The nodes as Foley calls them (small chapters arranged in alphabetical order) cover a variety of topics, utilizing the authors prefix appended terminology (such as tAgora and ewords) including thought experiments that challenge our conception of what constitutes a text. The argument lies therein: a nontraditional and nonlinear "book" reveals the tension and dynamic relationship between oral tradition and Internet technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a discussion of the original concept of Holism by Jan Christiaan Smuts. Summarizing the precepts of Holism is followed by critiques of various natural science writers. A holistic "thought experiment" offers an answer to the question: Can you remove anything from the universe, the whole? Conversely, social science writers are suggested to be unscientific and colloquial at best to their understanding of Holism, with a few exceptions. Discussion continues with new information of how Holism is a force of change. Examples are provided to include three applications. Conclusion suggests the utility of Holism for scientific inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of a recent interpretation of Ernst Mach's views on thought experiments argue that for Mach thought experiments must be continuous with and return to cached experiences. These criteria, the proponents hold, explain the tension which has been noted in Mach's views on thought experiments: on the one hand, Mach reprimands Newton in "extending principles beyond the boundaries of experience" when critiquing Newton's bucket argument, while on the other, Mach himself engages in speculative reasoning when presenting 'Mach's principle'. Against this interpretation, I argue that Mach's critique of Newton's argument does not turn on Newton's illegitimate use of thought experiments, but instead turns on Newton's illegitimate use of thoughts in thought experiments. Recognizing this leads to a simple and more compelling interpretation of Mach's views. I close the paper by gesturing towards such an interpretation and noting that taking Mach's views on thought experiments seriously implies that Mach is much less of a strict empiricist than he is usually understood to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recently published international relations and criminal justice writings, textbooks, and supplements focus on using science fiction and fantasy texts to teach social science theories. This article investigates how science fiction and fantasy examples affect student learning compared to documentary films. We use mixed methods to conduct two studies on the use of science fiction and fantasy in political science and criminal justice classrooms. In the first study, we divide up a large lecture class, comparing how examples from the HBO series Game of Thrones versus documentary films affect student learning about the United Nations and peacekeeping. Our second study uses a combination of interviews and surveys to assess how students apply various criminological theories to the 1997 film Gattaca versus a documentary. Our research reveals that science fiction and fantasy examples neither help nor harm student learning. However, incorporating examples from fictional worlds may alienate some students, affecting their enjoyment of class and perception of preparedness. Most importantly, we find that the use of fictional examples creates an interpretive barrier in the classroom. Thus, we recommend judicious use of science fiction and fantasy examples. When fictional examples are used, we encourage student preparation and extensive debriefing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maxwell's demon is a famous thought experiment and a paradigm of the thermodynamics of information. It is related to Szilard's engine, a two-state information-to-work conversion device in which the demon performs single measurements and extracts work depending on the state measurement outcome. A variant of these models, the continuous Maxwell demon (CMD), was recently introduced by Ribezzi-Crivellari and Ritort where work was extracted after multiple repeated measurements every time that τ is in a two-state system. The CMD was able to extract unbounded amounts of work at the cost of an unbounded amount of information storage. In this work, we built a generalization of the CMD to the N-state case. We obtained generalized analytical expressions for the average work extracted and the information content. We show that the second law inequality for information-to-work conversion is fulfilled. We illustrate the results for N-states with uniform transition rates and for the N = 3 case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Experimental Technology & Management is the property of Experimental Technology & Management Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Our linguistic communication is, in part, the exchange of truths. It is an empirical fact that in daily conversation we aim at truths, not falsehoods. This fact may lead us to assume that ordinary, assertion-based communication is the only possible communicative system for truth-apt information exchange, or at least has priority over any alternatives. This assumption is underwritten in three traditional doctrines: that assertion is a basic notion, in terms of which we define denial; that to predicate truth of a sentence is to assert the content it expresses; and that one should, in the context of radical interpretation, try to maximize the truth of what foreigners believe or utter. However, I challenge this assumption via a thought experiment: imagine a language game in which everyone aims to exchange only falsehoods. I argue that information exchange is possible in this game, and so truth-guided communication and falsity-guided communication are conceptually on a par. As a consequence, we should reject the three doctrines, based as they are on the conceptual priority of assertion-based communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I elaborate on Quilty-Dunn et al.'s integration of the language-of-thought hypothesis in social reasoning by outlining two discrepancies between the experimental paradigms referred to by the authors and the social world: Self-referential projection and deliberate thinking in experiments. Robust tests of the hypothesis in social reasoning should include observational, natural, and cross-cultural approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, two competing methodological frameworks have developed in the study of the epistemology of philosophy. The traditional camp, led by experimental philosophy and its allies, has made inferences about the epistemology of philosophy based on the reactions, or intuitions, people have to works of philosophy. In contrast, multiple authors have followed the lead of Deutsch and Cappelen by setting aside experimental data in favor of inferences based on careful examination of the text of notable works of philosophy. In other words, the debate is split between authors focusing on philosophy's consumption and those focusing on philosophy's production. This paper examines the motivation for focusing on original texts and other evidence of philosophy's production and finds it lacking. Drawing upon Hills' distinction between propagation and transmission, I argue that the social epistemology of philosophy does not justify the recent focus on original texts of philosophy. Because the philosophical knowledge of consumers of philosophy is likely inspired by producers of philosophy, as opposed to epistemically grounded in the producers' epistemic states, experimental philosophy had it right all along—if we want to know the epistemic standing of philosophy, we need to look to philosophy's consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transboundary issues - from (chemical) pollution, land-use change to unsustainable levels of exploitation - have been eroding natural sites across Europe, reducing biodiversity in the process. In light of this, this paper analyses the comprehensiveness of EU environmental law, appraising its underlying ethos in the process. Additionally, it explores whether a Natureship Framework Directive at the European Union (EU) level, which establishes legal personality for natural sites, can deliver a 'change of course' with respect to the anthropocentric view underpinning environmental law as a pressing thought experiment. It constructs a (fictive) law which grants natural sites substantive and procedural rights, conceptualising how such an instrument may take shape. One finding is that an EU Natureship may be a robust tool to address flaws within EU environmental law. For example, the attribution of legal personality to natural sites alongside the appointment of formal representatives can significantly relieve the burden for NGOs and the European Commission, which may suffer from limited resources when it comes to judicial enforcement of environmental norms (or, alternatively, ecological rights). Other benefits pertain to nature management, which may be less complex and more politically stable under the approach put forward in this paper. An EU Natureship, therefore, may provide a vehicle to shift EU environmental law from the anthropocentric to the ecocentric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define attention as "the set of evolved brain processes that leads to adaptive and effective behavioral selection." Our emphasis is on understanding the biological and neural mechanisms that make the behavioral properties of attention possible. Although much has been learned about the functional operation of attention by postulating and testing different aspects of attention, our view is that the distinctions most frequently relied upon are much less useful for identifying the detailed biological mechanisms and brain circuits. Instead, we adopt an evolutionary perspective that, while speculative, generates a different set of guiding principles for understanding the form and function of attention. We then provide a thought experiment, introducing a device that we intend to serve as an intuition pump for thinking about how the brain processes for attention might be organized, and that illustrates the features of the biological processes that might ultimately answer the question. This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of CognitionPsychology > AttentionPhilosophy > Psychological Capacities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This collective piece explores the philosophical, ontological, and epistemic potentials of analyzing the relations between childhood and time, proposing thought experiments and fieldwork analyses that release childhood from a linear temporality toward (modern) adulthood. Each experiment originating from the authors' distinct scholarly positionings fractures "modern childhood" and its civilization project, built from the hegemony of linear, sequential, progressive, and principled time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Margery Kempe (1373 – c. 1440) was born Margery Burnham (or Brunham) in Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn), Norfolk, to a wealthy mercantile family. Around 1393 she married a fellow merchant John Kempe (born c. 1365) and suffered a mental breakdown after the birth of their first child, with episodes of self-harm, depression, and hallucinations; she went on to give birth to thirteen more children. After her local businesses failed, she became intensely religious, going on pilgrimages all around England, and subsequently travelled to Rome, Jerusalem, Germany and Norway. Claiming to have regular visions of Christ, Mary, and saints, Margery suffered bouts of uncontrollable screaming every time she heard or saw anything she would interpret as a reference to Christ’s Passion, which secured her a reputation both of a holy and a possessed woman. In the late 1430s, she dictated a story of her life to a succession of three scribes, first of which may have been her son John Kempe, a citizen of Danzig. The single extant manuscript of her book, now kept in the British Library in London (MS Add. 61823, c. 1440) is often styled as the first autobiography in the English language. Since its rediscovery in 1934 in a cupboard of a Catholic country house during a game of table tennis, it went through multiple editions and translations and became both a part of the history curricula and a subject of numerous scholarly works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Roteiro is the property of Roteiro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years a lot of metaphilosophical attention has been paid to the role of thought experiments in philosophical inquiry. According to the popular picture, thought experiments are among the most prominent methods for conceptual analysis. However, it is also often claimed that thought experiments in ethics differ from those that are used in other fields of philosophy as being of a different nature—they are not about the concepts, but rather about the things in the world (what those things exactly are depends on the particular metaethical theory one subscribes to). In the paper I argue that this claim is wrong. Conceptual analysis is of a huge value to ethics for it substantially helps to clarify the concepts one uses while making a moral judgment. It is very often the case that the apparent moral disagreement between two subjects turns out to be superficial since it is rooted in the misunderstanding on the conceptual level, for example when one uses some concept equivocally. Moreover, through thought experiments conceptual analysis can help to bring out the tacit assumptions that relate to the concepts involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If nature is a laboratory in which new scenarios for survival are constantly being conceived, implemented or rejected, this can also be said about the activities of the human brain. Some of the evolutionary output in nature looks rather bizarre and, from a human perspective, even unreal. However, the "imaginary" beings created by the brain manifest parallels and may thus alert us to their evolutionary function for thinking and science. Imaginary beings seen as thought experiments can thus have heuristic functions. They can arise from language itself and in turn reflect and process scientific knowledge or even bring about discoveries. What this eventually implies is that science cannot do without the imagination. This essay tries to bridge a gap between science and the arts by comparing scientific demons (Kepler, Laplace, Maxwell) and cats (Schrödinger) with literary texts by Christian Morgenstern and Lewis Carroll. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One compelling argument challenging the tenability of physicalism, which sees reality as fundamentally comprised of physical facts, is Jackson's knowledge argument. Through a powerful thought experiment involving the case of Mary, the super neuroscientist, the argument demonstrates how knowledge of phenomenal facts cannot be deduced from knowledge of physical facts. For allegedly leaving out phenomenal facts in its account of reality, physicalism is shown to be incomplete and hence mistaken. Physicalists respond to this argument in a variety of ways, challenging, in turn, some aspects of the knowledge argument. This paper focuses on the replies of the ability hypothesis and the phenomenal concept strategy, which respectively try to block the two crucial moves in the knowledge argument: the establishment of an epistemic gap and the inference from the occurrence of this gap to the existence of an ontological gap. The paper critically examines how proponents of these two replies to the knowledge argument respond to some objections to maintain the viability of physicalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When considered as orthogonal bases in distinct vector spaces, the unit vectors of polarization directions and the Laguerre–Gaussian modes of polarization amplitude are inseparable, constituting a so-called classical entangled light beam. Equating this classical entanglement to quantum entanglement necessary for computing purpose, we show that the parallelism featured in Shor's factoring algorithm is equivalent to the concurrent light-path propagation of an entangled beam or pulse train. A gedanken experiment is proposed for executing the key algorithmic steps of modular exponentiation and Fourier transform on a target integer N using only classical manipulations on the amplitudes and polarization directions. The multiplicative order associated with the sought-after integer factors is identified through a four-hole diffraction interference from sources obtained from the entangled beam profile. The unique mapping from the fringe patterns to the computed order is demonstrated through simulations for the case N = 15 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wilcox proposed an argument against imprecise probabilities and for the principle of indifference based on a thought experiment where he argues that it is very intuitive to feel that one's confidence in drawing a ball of a given colour out of an unknown urn should decrease while the number of potential colours in the urn increases. In my response to him, I argue that one's intuitions may be unreliable because it is very hard to truly feel completely ignorant in such a situation. I further argue that Wilcox must also account for the conflicting intuition that it is absurd to have to feel completely convinced that a specific claim about reality is true in the absence of any evidence in order to avoid being irrational. It is dubious that this intuition is considerably less universal and strongly-held than Wilcox's own intuition. Finally, I point out that even if Wilcox's intuition were to be universally shared among members of our biological species, it is far from being clear that someone refusing to let that intuition dictate his or her beliefs would be irrational. For all these reasons, I believe that Wilcox was not successful in proving that philosophers and scientists representing uncertainty through imprecise probabilities are violating the principles of rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how rule‐consequentialism might adapt to very adverse futures, and whether moderate liberal consequentialism can survive into broken futures and/or futures where humanity faces imminent extinction. The paper first recaps the recent history of rule‐consequentialist procreative ethics. It outlines rule‐consequentialism, extends it to cover future people, and applies it to broken futures. The paper then introduces a new thought experiment—the "ending world"—where humanity faces an extinction that is unavoidable and imminent, but not immediate. The paper concludes by explaining why this thought experiment challenges rule‐consequentialism's commitment to procreative liberty, and briefly asking how rule‐consequentialism might respond to that challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pathogenesis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)—a disorder of gut-brain interaction that affects up to 10% of the world's population—remains uncertain. It is puzzling that a disorder so prevalent and archetypal among humans can be explained by disparate theories, respond to treatments with vastly different mechanisms of action, and present with a dazzling array of comorbidities. It is reasonable to question whether there is a unifying factor that binds these divergent theories and observations, and if so, what that factor might be. This article offers a testable hypothesis that seeks to accommodate the manifold theories, clinical symptoms, somatic comorbidities, neuropsychological features, and treatment outcomes of IBS by describing the syndrome in relation to a principal force of human evolution: gravity. In short, the hypothesis proposed here is that IBS may result from ineffective anatomical, physiological, and neuropsychological gravity management systems designed to optimize gastrointestinal form and function, protect somatic and visceral integrity, and maximize survival in a gravity-bound world. To explain this unconventional hypothesis of IBS pathogenesis, referred to herein as the gravity hypothesis, this article reviews the influence of gravity on human evolution; discusses how Homo sapiens imperfectly evolved to manage this universal force of attraction; and explores the mechanical, microbial, and neuropsychological consequences of gravity intolerance with a focus on explaining IBS. This article concludes by considering the diagnostic and therapeutic implications of this new hypothesis and proposes experiments to support or reject this line of inquiry. It is hoped that the ideas in this thought experiment may also help encourage new or different ways of thinking about this common disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imagine advanced computers that could, by virtue merely of being programmed in the right ways, act, react, communicate, and otherwise behave like humans. Might such computers be capable of understanding, thinking, believing, and the like? The framework developed in this paper for tackling challenging questions of concept application (in any realm of discourse) answers in the affirmative, contrary to Searle's famous 'Chinese Room' thought experiment, which purports to prove that ascribing such mental processes to computers like these would be necessarily incorrect. The paper begins by arguing that the core issue concerns language, specifically the discourse-community-guided mapping of phenomena onto linguistic categories. It then offers a model of how people adapt language to deal with novel states of affairs and thereby lend generality to their words, employing processes of assimilation, lexemic creation, and accommodation (in intersense and intrasense varieties). Attributions of understanding to some computers lie in the middle range on a spectrum of acceptability and are thus reasonable. Possible objections deriving from Searle's writings require supplementing the model with distinctions between present and future acceptability, and between contemplated and uncontemplated word uses, as well as a literal-figurative distinction that is more sensitive than Searle's to actual linguistic practice and the multiplicity of subsenses possible within a single literal sense. The paper then critiques two misleading rhetorical features of Searle's Chinese Room presentation, and addresses a contemporary defense of Searle that seems to confront the sociolinguistic issue, but fails to allow for intrasense accommodation. It concludes with a brief consideration of the proper course for productive future discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the problem of the epistemic value of thought experiment, in revealed theology, insofar as it possesses a fundamental trait in common with fiction. Starting from Fehige's proposal to reread St. Anselm's ontological argument as a thought experiment of revealed theology and in the light of important differences between the use of scientific and theological thought experiments, it is possible, even in theology, to speak of an indirect or 'reflexive' nexus between thought and action. On the basis of this nexus, one can rethink the epistemic role of the theological thought experiment in relation to the art of narration that brings theological thought experiments and fiction closer together. However, it is always the context in which the thought experiment is considered that determines its value and role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The article is an attempt to demonstrate the author's unconventional way of presenting a method of generating innovative ideas. Thus, the previous patterns of research procedure were replaced with various literary forms in order to activate the intellectual capital of the people taking part in the study. In addition, the authors presented ways of using a thought experiment as a form of creating innovative solutions in various fields of science. Methodology/approach: the authors, wishing to go beyond the boundaries set by well-known quantitative and qualitative research methods, propose their own approach to generating innovative ideas. Limitations: Aware of the fact that divagation and deliberation create abstractions, they took the trouble to structure them through a series of short intellectual narratives, accompanied by a rational commentary. Implications: The article explicitly identifies roles: that of the scientist, whose opinion appears at the beginning and end of each divagation and deliberation, and the role of the intellectual who articulates these divagations and deliberations. Value: As will be seen in the examples, a thought experiment is not a compact monolith concerning the essence of the issue, but a rather free-flowing presentation of loosely related issues. It is an attempt to encourage: students, managers or educators to freely articulate: abstract, original and therefore non-standard considerations, which can stimulate generating all kinds of ideas: in private life, in companies, and in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of human-like robots with artificial intelligence (AI) engaging in sports has been considered in the light of robotics, technology and culture. However, robots with AI can also be used to clarify ethical questions in sports such as boxing with its inherent risks of brain injury and even death. This article develops an innovative way to assess the ethical issues in boxing by using a thought experiment, responding to recent medical data and overall concerns about harms and risks to boxers. The thought experiment imagines a fight between a human and a robot. Critical issues about head trauma and brain injuries are then discussed. These can be summed up in two ethical questions: 'why is it acceptable for a boxer to deliver concussive and recurrent subconcussive punches to a human head (skull and brain), powerful enough to achieve a knockout, or score more points, or to potentially inflict an injury immediately or eventually resulting in death?', with the reciprocal question, 'why is it acceptable to allow oneself to be injured in a like manner, possibly fatally, by an opponent?' The two questions are explored using the thought experiment in two matching perspectives: where the human boxer is attacking and the robot boxer is defending; and conversely, where the human boxer is on the receiving end of punches delivered by the robot. Each perspective opens with some general remarks, followed by an analysis of the boxing contest and eliciting some implications for future opportunities for the sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines what is at stake in the trading zone, where Eco and Techno movements meet, especially in regard to the attributes generally posited as unique to "the human" and upon which compulsory schooling has been historically founded. It offers a thought experiment and investigation into how the simultaneity of Eco and Techno movements highlight what is at stake in schooling's reliance on attributes such as consciousness and intelligence and considers how historical understandings of compulsory schooling's projects might be reapproached as a result. Examining research, literatures and movements that frequently make appeal to signifiers like environment or Earth as a site of rescue and restoration, Including the climate strike movement, global youth surveys, EcoCrit literature and their focus on an Anthropocene (the Eco) alongside the faith placed in technological inventions, in particular those associated with artificial intelligence, the transhumanist movement, and a specific version of technofuturism, the paper maps the differential challenges to human centrism (Eco) and human primacy (Techno). Such challenges leave the field with difficult questions about the limits of intentionality, rationality and analysis and the future of violent legacies initially built around the figure of Man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scientists investigating the thermal properties of black holes rely heavily on theoretical and non-empirical tools, such as mathematical derivations, analogue experiments and thought experiments. Although the use of mathematical derivations and analogue experiments in the context of black hole physics has recently received a great deal of attention among philosophers of science, the use of thought experiments (TEs) in that context has been almost completely neglected. In this paper, we will start filling this gap by systematically analyzing the epistemic role of the two TEs that gave birth to black hole thermodynamics, namely Wheeler’s demon and Geroch’s engine. We will argue that the two main epistemic functions of these TEs are to reveal and resolve inconsistencies, in line with El Skaf’s (Probing theoretical statements with thought experiments. Synthese 199:6119–6147, 2021) approach to TEs. We will, then, go beyond El Skaf’s approach by stressing an important difference between the strategies employed to assess the reliability of each epistemic function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several influential thought experiments from Harman 1973 purport to show that unpossessed evidence can undermine knowledge. Recently, some epistemologists have appealed to these thought experiments in defense of a logically stronger thesis: unpossessed evidence can defeat justification. But these appeals fail to appreciate that Harman himself thought of his examples as Gettier cases, and so would have rejected this strengthening of his thesis. On the contrary, he would have held that while unpossessed evidence can undermine knowledge, it leaves justification intact. In this paper I seek to undermine the viability of Harman’s position. If this is correct, contemporary epistemology faces a choice: either we reject that unpossessed evidence in Harman-style cases bears on knowledge at all, or else we must allow that it undermines knowledge by defeating justification. The former option must explain why Harman’s thought experiments elicit strong ‘no knowledge’ intuitions; the latter option embraces a minority view about the bearing of social expectations on the assessment of knowledge and justification (= the doctrine of normative defeat). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a book review of "Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking with Microbes" by Amber Benezra. The book explores the author's experience conducting ethnographic fieldwork at the Jeffrey Gordon Lab at Washington University School of Medicine, focusing on the collaboration between social and biological sciences to address global health disparities. The book delves into topics such as the microbiome, the impact of microbes on families, and the intersection of race and microbiome research. The author calls for a more inclusive and decolonial approach to microbiome science and invites collaboration between social scientists and scientists in supporting marginalized scholars and organizations. [Extracted from the article]

Bin Liu's defense of phenomenalism via an elaborate and inventive thought experiment is contrasted with more traditional ways of defending that doctrine. A similar distinction in strategies can be drawn between different ways of arguing that we live in a virtual world. The comparison leads to a more general, metaphilosophical conclusion about how to argue for constructivist positions in metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"John Dewey and Confucian Thought: Experiments in Intra-Cultural Philosophy" by Jim Behuniak explores the impact of Chinese society and thought on John Dewey, an American philosopher, during and after his visit to China. The book connects Dewey with Confucian thought, challenging traditional interpretations and highlighting the parallels between the two thinkers, particularly in the areas of education and the role of custom in culture. Behuniak also deconstructs and replaces interpretations of Confucianism based on Greek-medieval assumptions with a naturalized reading of tian, the concept of heaven in Confucian thought. The book aims to offer a new way of doing cross-cultural philosophy and encourages critical reflection and reconstruction of cultural and social forms. [Extracted from the article]