thought experiments
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2022 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
V. N. Karpovich

In his theory of natural laws David Lewis rejects the authenticity of impossible worlds on the grounds that the contradiction contained within his modifier "in (the world) w" is tantamount to a contradiction in the whole theory, which seems unacceptable. At the same time, in philosophical discourse very often researchers use counterfactual situations and thought experiments with impossible events and objects. There is a need to apply the theory of worlds to genuine, concrete, but impossible worlds. One way to do this is to reject Lewis's classical negation on the grounds that it leads to problems of completeness and inconsistency inside the worlds. The proposed extension for impossibility is compatible with Lewis's extensional metaphysics, although it leads to some loss for description completeness in semantics.


Family Forum ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 335-337
Author(s):  
Ottilia Lukacs
Keyword(s):  

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nenad Miscevic
Keyword(s):  

Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (60) ◽  
pp. 109-121
Author(s):  
John McClellan

A prominent Christian apologist suggests it is inconsistent for an atheist to have a favourable attitude towards procreating while maintaining that a loving God would not place vulnerable beings in such a harmful world. I put this analogy to the test with a series of thought experiments, revealing crucial disanalogies between God and procreators that absolve the atheist from the charge of inconsistency and draw the reader's attention to the central issues on the problem of evil as debated by contemporary philosophers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter

Epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. This chapter uses a series of thought experiments featuring (radical) forms of cognitive enhancement in order to show why; in particular, and with reference to a series of tweaks on Lehrer’s ‘TrueTemp’ case, I motivate an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge, a condition the satisfaction of which—it will be shown—is neither entailed by, nor entails, the satisfaction of either a belief condition or, importantly, an epistemic justification condition. This transition from a ‘JTB+X’ to a ‘JTAB+X’ template marks an important and needed update to the received thinking about what knowing involves. (Of course, the question of whether knowledge is analysable is contentious; an appendix for knowledge-firsters explains the relevance of the necessity of epistemic autonomy for knowledge for knowledge-first projects).


Author(s):  
Victor Varela ◽  
Lorenzo Leal

Abstract We show that mass parameter and radial marker values can be indirectly measured in thought experiments performed in Schwarzschild spacetime, without using the Newtonian limit of general relativity or approximations based on Euclidean geometry. Our approach involves different proper time quantifications as well as solutions to systems of algebraic equations, and aims to strengthen the conceptual independence of general relativity from Newtonian gravity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Adam Kelly

<p>This thesis focuses on what I have called “technological idealisations”, and how they are valuable to many current and future ethical debates. Technological idealisations refer to a methodology of using technology thought experiments to contribute to ethical debates. I do not claim this to be a new idea, and in fact will go on to give many examples of technological idealisation that already exist in the philosophical literature. The term describes the purposeful effort to collate these examples into a specific methodological framework; one which gives a particular kind of evidence which can ignore concerns of practicality and critically focus on the theoretical issues in a given debate.  In order to explore this idea I will first be looking at past, better known, examples of idealisations to facilitate understanding of my own. I will look at Rawlsian ideal theory as a template for my own idealisations, as well as to explain how they can be valuable in contributing to debates (in Rawls’ case political and in my case ethical). Rawls’ split up the field of political theory into ideal and non-ideal theory. Non-ideal theory is practical and works within the constraints of current political reality. Ideal theory idealises the political conditions to allow theorising regarding perfect political theory. The same can be done for ethics and for technology as it relates to ethics, as is my goal. Following on from this, I also examine Johann Roduit’s use of ideal theory in the closely related field of human enhancement, in which he develops an interesting methodology of using ideals to guide human enhancement programmes.  However, rather than being concerned with Roduit’s practical aim, my goal is theoretical. I want to take the ethical principles and theories themselves as ideals for technological development; in doing so technologies will be created, through the use of thought experiments, which agree with the theoretical aims of the theory or principle. These technologies can then be ethically examined and the resulting evidence can contribute (and has in the past contributed) to the ethical debate of those concepts and theories. The kind of evidence I see technological idealisations as offering ignores practical concerns and in doing so is also immune to criticisms of impracticality. This allows for more closely focused scrutiny of the ethical theories and principles themselves, undistracted by appeals to practicality which either argue for accepting a theory due to its utility or argue for rejecting a theory due to its impracticality.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Adam Kelly

<p>This thesis focuses on what I have called “technological idealisations”, and how they are valuable to many current and future ethical debates. Technological idealisations refer to a methodology of using technology thought experiments to contribute to ethical debates. I do not claim this to be a new idea, and in fact will go on to give many examples of technological idealisation that already exist in the philosophical literature. The term describes the purposeful effort to collate these examples into a specific methodological framework; one which gives a particular kind of evidence which can ignore concerns of practicality and critically focus on the theoretical issues in a given debate.  In order to explore this idea I will first be looking at past, better known, examples of idealisations to facilitate understanding of my own. I will look at Rawlsian ideal theory as a template for my own idealisations, as well as to explain how they can be valuable in contributing to debates (in Rawls’ case political and in my case ethical). Rawls’ split up the field of political theory into ideal and non-ideal theory. Non-ideal theory is practical and works within the constraints of current political reality. Ideal theory idealises the political conditions to allow theorising regarding perfect political theory. The same can be done for ethics and for technology as it relates to ethics, as is my goal. Following on from this, I also examine Johann Roduit’s use of ideal theory in the closely related field of human enhancement, in which he develops an interesting methodology of using ideals to guide human enhancement programmes.  However, rather than being concerned with Roduit’s practical aim, my goal is theoretical. I want to take the ethical principles and theories themselves as ideals for technological development; in doing so technologies will be created, through the use of thought experiments, which agree with the theoretical aims of the theory or principle. These technologies can then be ethically examined and the resulting evidence can contribute (and has in the past contributed) to the ethical debate of those concepts and theories. The kind of evidence I see technological idealisations as offering ignores practical concerns and in doing so is also immune to criticisms of impracticality. This allows for more closely focused scrutiny of the ethical theories and principles themselves, undistracted by appeals to practicality which either argue for accepting a theory due to its utility or argue for rejecting a theory due to its impracticality.</p>


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