FOR 1614: What If? On the Meaning, Espitemology and Scientific Relevance of Counterfactual Claims and Thought Experiments

反事实思维或最广泛意义上的条件思维对我们的认知和实际生活的重要性是压倒性的。我们所有的计划都依赖于它，就像我们普遍的因果图一样。我们认为没有原因就不会有结果；我们评估如果我们选择其中一种可能的结果。然而，尽管有大量的文献，条件思考的本质仍然没有被理解。DFG研究部门“如果？”从一开始就以一种新颖的方式解决了这个问题。在它的两个项目中，它处理了这个主题的哲学和语言学基础，基于到目前为止被忽视的形式认识论的最新发展。另外两个项目涉及条件思考的最明确的实施，即思想实验，在哲学、人文科学和生物学中，很少在这方面进行探索。几乎没有处理过的向小说的过渡是模糊的；这是由文学研究的一个项目来解决的。这个研究单位是由一个关于智力时代的科学史项目召集起来的，这个项目开始讨论思想实验。该小组的合作使人们确信，要更好地理解条件思考，就需要更彻底地研究它作为一种工具的特点，以及它的实用主义和心理社会基础和影响。这是延长研究单位的指导思想，加强到七个项目（加上一个相关项目）。因此，它在方法论上也进入了更多的未知领域。三个项目将涉及条件性思维的哲学基础。有一个模态理论项目研究可能性的动态概念，这可能为条件理论化提供更好的基础。有一个认识论-语义学项目，探索条件语篇中的认识论动态。一个更进一步的哲学心理学项目探讨了想象的主题，即处于条件思考底层的心理能力。在语言学中也是如此，人们必须研究条件语篇的语用学，这一点已经变得越来越明显。这项研究将在两个语言学项目中进行，并与哲学项目合作。所有这些都将得到墨卡托认知心理学奖学金的补充。最后，有两个项目加强研究单位的心理社会方面。由另一个墨卡托奖学金项目修订的科学史项目将精确地集中在这些方面，因为它们已经在迄今为止研究的知识传统的进一步发展中得到了处理。这个项目，名义上属于文学研究，但实际上是社会历史研究，通过研究反事实史学在后苏联社会中的政治功能，在更大的维度上进行研究。

The significance of counterfactual or in the widest sense conditional thinking for our cognitive and practical life is overwhelming. All our planning depends on it just as much as our pervasive causal picture. We think that the effect would not have occurred without the cause; and we assess what might result if we were to choose one of the available options. However, the nature of conditional thinking is still ill understood, despite a tremendous literature.The DFG research unit "What if?" tackled its topic from the outset in an original way. In two of its projects it deals with the philosophical and linguistic foundations of the topic, on the basis of recent developments in formal epistemology ignored so far. Two other projects attend to the most explicit implementation of conditional thinking, viz. thought experiments, in philosophy, in the humanities, and in biology, which is rarely explored in this respect. The hardly treated transition to fiction is blurred; it was addressed by a project from literary studies. The research unit was rounded up by a project in the history of sciences about the intellectual era that started talking of thought experiments.The collaboration of the group led to the conviction that a better understanding of condi-tional thinking requires a much more thorough-going study of its character as a tool and of its pragmatic and psycho-social foundations and impact. This is the guiding idea of the prolon-gation of the research unit, which is strengthened to seven projects (plus one associated). Thereby it enters even more unchartered waters, also methodologically.Three projects will deal with the philosophical foundations of conditional thinking. There is a modal theoretic project investigating a dynamic notion of possibility that may provide a better grounding of conditional theorizing. There is an epistemological-semantic project exploring the epistemic dynamics in conditional discourse. A further philosophical-psychological project addresses the topic of imagination, that mental faculty that is at the bottom of conditional thinking. In linguistics as well it has become more than apparent that one must study the pragmatics of conditional discourse. This study will be undertaken in two linguistic projects, in cooperation with the philosophical projects. All of this will be complemented by a Mercator fellowship from cognitive psychology. Finally, there are two projects strengthening the psycho-social aspects of the research unit. The history of science project, amended by another Mercator fellowship, will focus precisely on those aspects, as they have been treated in the further development of the intellectual traditions investigated so far. And the project, which nominally belongs to literary studies, but is actually one in social history, engages in larger dimensions by studying the political function of counterfactual historiography in post-sovjet Russian society.