From the thought experiment tradition of physics, named by Hans Christian Ørsted (1812) and analyzed by Ernst Mach (Knowledge and Error, 1905), Roy A. Sorensen (Thought Experiments, 1992), and Tamar Szabo Gendler (Thought Experiment, 2000).
Builds a minimal imagined scenario that isolates one question, stripping out confounding detail, so the answer exposes the principle or assumption behind a view.
When to reach for it
When the real case cannot be tested or has not happened yet, or a position rests on assumptions nobody has stated.
How it runs
- State the single question to isolate.
- Build the smallest scenario that raises it.
- List what was stripped out and why.
- Run the scenario and note the intuitive answer.
- Vary one feature at a time to see what the answer tracks.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- Ansicht der chemischen Naturgesetze, 1812
- Knowledge and Error (Erkenntnis und Irrtum), 1905
- Thought Experiments, 1992
- Thought Experiment: On the Powers and Limits of Imaginary Cases, 2000