Thought Experiments in Philosophy

Introduction

The thought experiments and imaginary stories are quite frequently used in the context of philosophy for simplifying, clarifying and providing substantial evidence as well as counter evidence for proving the different abstract principles and ideas. Thought experiments are known to portray the abstract ideas as well as ascertain the credibility as evidenced by various scholars. The core attributes of thought experiments and imaginary stories have been known to bring a literary concept as well as utilize the concept of entertainment. Specifically when discussing the philosophy concept pertaining to thought experiments there is a huge role of utilizing the different thought experiments (Lorenzo, Biesanz, & Human, 2010).

Discussion

The analysis of philosophical literature reveals that the thought experiments are known to use two types of elements in a high proportion. The elements used extensively by thought experiments in the context of philosophy are exemplification and idealization. The essence of idealizations is to compress and conceptualize the crux or central facets of complex realities and thus make these conceptualizations testable within the context of the laboratory of mind. The decision pertaining to the relevance of the concepts depends a great deal on the purpose and essence of the discussion. On the other hand, the purpose and essence of exemplifications is to successfully justify the various abstract ideas in order to turn them into testable assumptions.

The risks associated with both these concepts are quite wide ranging and complex which further hamper the essence of these philosophical concepts. The risks having adverse effects on both these concepts are excessive irrelevant information as well as risk of loss of information. Although these are substantial risks posing threats in the application of such concepts, there are additional risks as well which hamper the essence of these concepts. One of the most significant tasks performed by thought experiments is that they are able to provide counter evidence as well as evidence to discredit the claims and counter claims (Gendler, 2007).

Practical and Philosophical Principles

There has been a huge role of thought experiments within the context of philosophy. Although the use of thought experiments has been quite profound in multiple fields, the field of philosophy has benefitted the most as the thought experiments are known to influence the nature of philosophy. The concept of thought experiments gels well with the nature of philosophy because of the fact that philosophy pertains to the imaginary stories and thought processes. It tends to create an imaginary world and violates the phenomena within the context of a real world. The philosophy of mind is of the utmost significance within the context of thought experiments and thus the thought experiments look to involve the philosophy of mind (O'Hear, 2000).

The use of illustrations is quite significant in the context of shaping thought experiments as they present the findings in a profound manner. In addition, one of the most important philosophical concepts within the thought experiments is personal identity. Most of the prominent philosophers have looked to use the concept ...