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What Thought Experiments Tell Us and Don’t Tell Us About the World

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The Demons of Science
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Abstract

Do thought experiments produce genuine knowledge about the real world? Similar to Popper’s critical function of thought experiments, Brown distinguishes destructive thought experiments, whose function is to highlight conceptual and logical problems within a particular theory, from constructive thought experiments, whose function is to establish a positive result.

Metaphors are an essential part of thought—including scientific thought.

Ruse, Darwin and Design (2003: 284)

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Correspondence to Friedel Weinert .

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Weinert, F. (2016). What Thought Experiments Tell Us and Don’t Tell Us About the World. In: The Demons of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31708-3_6

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