On The Interpretation And Digestion Of The Paradoxical Thought Experiment

The thought experiment is mentality activities which carries out in people’s minds, and have became an irreplaceable method. Paradoxical thought experiment occupies an important position in the history of science and philosophy, by exporting dilemma, sparked depth thinking, leading to revolutionary changes about scientific theories, and promoting a qualitative leap of the theories. Galileo’s free fall is a typical paradox. This thesis interprets paradoxical thought experiment.The thesis consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction, primarily describes on the significance of the topic, research methods, innovations and deficiencies. The first chapter proposes the paradoxical thought experiment, describes the thought experiment connotation by exemplification, and lists the development process of thought experiments in the history of philosophy. According to J.R.Brown the thought experiment is divides into three categories. And then I summed up the characteristics of the paradoxical thought experiment through listed some classic cases of the paradoxical thought experiment. The second chapter interprets the paradoxical thought experiment and expounds several representative viewpoints, concluding:Mach’s empiricist views; Brown’s Platonic view; Norton’s argument view; and Gendler’s view of the rethinking and re-perception. The Chapter three summarizes and analysis some of the key issues caused by paradoxical thought experiment. Whether thought experiment can be used as arguments; whether the premise of the thought experiment is a priori; Whether thought experiments can be mental simulate. To solve these problems, I propose the digestion program in the Chapter IV of the thesis, including:Coordination Theory digestion, Dueling Theories digestion, and Toulmin model digestion.