Poor vs. Good Thought Experiments in Pragmatics: A Case Study

Kertész, András (2016) Poor vs. Good Thought Experiments in Pragmatics: A Case Study. In: Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology (9). Springer, Cham, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London, pp. 643-677. ISBN 978-3-319-43490-2

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Abstract

Thought experiments have played a decisive role in the development of pragmatics, and yet the problem of how to distinguish between good and poor thought experiments has not been tackled systematically. The present paper is devoted to this problem. After presenting a brief overview of the philosophical literature on the distinction between good and poor thought experiments, as a point of departure the author defines the Received View. This says that a thought experiment is poor if (a) it leads to contradictory conclusions, and/or (b) it is fallacious (with special respect to circularity), and/or (c) it cannot be related to real experiments/empirical theories, and/or (d) it misses relevant experiential content. The present paper puts forward another hypothesis which is the result of applying a novel metatheoretical model of plausible argumentation to the problem mentioned. According to the new hypothesis, a thought experiment in pragmatics is poor if it does not trigger a process of plausible argumentation that is cyclic, prismatic and based on the retrospective re-evaluation of information. The tenability of this hypothesis is exemplified by a case study on one of Searle's famous thought experiments.

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