Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Sections

1. An epistemological puzzle?
2. Scepticism about thought experiments
3. Wilkes against philosophical thought experiments
   • 3.1 The underspecificity objection
   • 3.2 The natural kinds objection
   • 3.3 Theoretically impossible assumptions
4. Criticism of Wilkes;
   • 4.1 On inadequate background
   • 4.2 On natural kinds and thought experiments
   • 4.3 On relevance and impossibility
   • 4.4 On theoretical possibility
5. Fodor: there is no saying what we would say
6. Quine: what we should say is indeterminate
7. Dancy: counterfactual cases can't decide actual cases
   • 7.1 Moral reasons and properties
   • 7.2 How Dancy's criticism covers actual cases too
   • 7.3 On Dancy's notion of a holism of reasons
   • 7.4 How holism is compatible with the relevance of new cases
8. Summary