The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences
The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences
复制标题
心灵实验室：自然科学中的思想实验
DOI：
10.5860/choice.29-4469
复制
发表时间：
1993
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
J. Brown
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Brown
思想实验是在思想的实验室里进行的。除了这个比喻之外，很难说出这些研究自然的非凡设备到底是什么，或者它们是如何工作的。尽管大多数科学家和哲学家都承认它们的重要性，但对它们的认真研究却很少。这本书是第一本关于思想实验的长篇研究。从伽利略关于落体的论证开始，布朗描述了科学史上最具影响力的思想实验的许多例子。在这个主题的介绍之后，一些实质性的和具有挑衅性的主张被提出，其原则是，一些思想实验应该以柏拉图主义者理解数学活动的方式来理解：作为对独立存在的抽象领域的智力把握。凭借清晰的风格和结构，《心灵的实验室》将在所有科学哲学家以及对思维实验如何运作感到困惑的科学家中找到读者。
Thought experiments are performed in the laboratory of the mind. Beyond this metaphor it is difficult to say just what these remarkable devices for investigating nature are or how they work. Though most scientists and philosophers would admit their great importance, there has been very little serious study of them. This volume is the first book-length investigation of thought experiments. Starting with Galileo's argument on falling bodies, Brown describes numerous examples of the most influential thought experiments from the history of science. Following this introduction to the subject, some substantial and provocative claims are made, the principle being that some thought experiments should be understood in the same way that platonists understand mathematical activity: as an intellectual grasp of an independently existing abstract realm. With its clarity of style and structure, The Laboratory of the Mind will find readers among all philosophers of science as well as scientists who have puzzled over how thought experiments work.