Thought Experiment in the Natural sciences – An Operational and Reflexive-Transcendental Conception of Thought Experiment in the Natural Sciences – Marco Buzzoni – ISBN 9783826038433 / 978-3-8260-3843-3 / 978-3-82-603843-3

How can thought experiments, which, unlike real ones, do not rely on new material drawn from experience, lead to unexpected conclusions sometimes capable of casting doubts on well-confi rmed empirical theories? How can inferences drawn in the sphere of thought alone tell us something about empirical reality, just as real experiments do? From a methodological point of view, an answer to these questions presupposes that the relation between thought experiments and real experiments be explained; and this is possible only if both terms are explicitly thematised. In this respect, there is a serious gap in literature, which has hardly tackled the question of nature, function and validity of real experiments. This work tries to overcome this limit of previous conceptions of thought experiment from a perspective at once operational and refl exive-transcendental. From an operational point of view all thought experiments may conceivably become real experiments and all experiments may be conceived as realised thought experiments. However, the operational perspective defended in this work allows for a refl exive-transcendental point of view that sharply distinguishes the two concepts of experiment and thought experiment while maintaining the connection between them. Der Autor Marco Buzzoni is since 2001 full professor for philosophy of science in the Department of Philosophy and Human Sciences at the University of Macerata and since 2003 temporary professor for philosophy of science at the University of Genoa.