The Epistemology of Thought Experiments: First Person versus Third Person Approaches

Abstract

T here has been a movement recently to bring to bear on the conduct of philo- sophical thought experiments (henceforth "thought experiments") 1 the empirical techniques of the social sciences, that is, to treat their conduct as in the nature of an anthropological investigation into the application conditions of the concepts of a group of subjects.This is to take a third person, in contrast to the traditional first person, approach to conceptual analysis.This has taken the form of conducting surveys about scenarios used in thought experiments. 2It has been called "experimental philosophy" by its practitioners and has been applied across a range of fields: the philosophy of language, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. 3The results of these surveys have been used to support conclusions about the application conditions of particular concepts of interest in philosophy.They have also been used to support (and been motivated by) skeptical claims about the traditional approach to conceptual analysis.The 1.I mean to distinguish philosophical thought experiments, which aim at the elucidation of concepts, in a sense to be further explained, from scientific thought experiments, whose aim is to draw out consequences of empirical theories of the world.2. Many of the themes expressed by proponents of "experimental philosophy" are similar to those expressed by Arne Naess in his early work, especially in Interpretation and Preciseness (1953), which presents a wealth of empirical information about ordinary usage in the form of surveys, along with analysis.3.