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Peer-reviewed Articles 


5. What Can we Learn (and not Learn) from Thought Experiments in Black Hole Thermodynamics? (with Patricia Palacios, Synthese, 2022. Preprint available here, open access original version here

Scientists investigating the thermal properties of black holes rely heavily on theoretical and non-empirical tools, such as mathematical derivations, analogue experiments and thought experiments. Although the use of mathematical derivations and analogue experiments in the context of black hole physics has recently received a great deal of attention among philosophers of science, the use of thought experiments in that context has been almost completely neglected. In this paper, we will start filling this gap by systematically analyzing the epistemic role of the two thought experiments that gave birth to black hole thermodynamics, namely Wheeler’s demon and Geroch’s engine. We will argue that the two main epistemic functions of these thought experiments are to reveal and resolve inconsistencies, in line with El Skaf’s (2021) approach to TEs. We will, then, go beyond El Skaf’s approach by stressing an important difference between the strategies employed to assess the reliability of each epistemic function.


4. Probing Theoretical Statements with Thought Experiment, Synthese, 2021. Open access original available here

Many thought experiments (TEs) are used to probe theoretical statements. One crucial strategy for doing this, or so I will argue, is the following. A TE reveals an inconsistency in part of our previously held, sometimes empirically well-established, theoretical statements. A TEer or her critic then proposes a resolution in the form of a conjecture, a hypothesis that merits further investigation. To explore this characterisation of the epistemic function of such TEs, I clarify the nature of the inconsistencies revealed by TEs, and how TEs reveal and resolve them. I argue that this can be done without settling the question of which cognitive processes are involved in performing a TE; be they propositional or non-propositional. The upshot is that TEs’ reliability, like real experiments, is to be found, in part, in their replicability by the epistemic community, not in their cognitive underpinnings.


3.            The function and limit of Galileo’s falling bodies thought experiment: Absolute weight, specific weight and the medium’s resistance, Croatian journal of Philosophy, 2018. Preprint available here, original version here

The ongoing epistemological debate on scientific thought experiments (TEs) revolves, in part, around the now famous Galileo’s falling bodies TE and how it could justify its conclusions. In this paper, I argue that the TE's function is misrepresented in this a-historical debate. I retrace the history of this TE and show that it constituted the first step in two general “argumentative strategies”, excogitated by Galileo to defend two different theories of free-fall, in 1590’s and then in the 1638. I analyse both argumentative strategies and argue that their function was to eliminate potential causal factors: the TE serving to eliminate absolute weight as a causal factor, while the subsequent arguments served to explore the effect of specific weight, with conflicting conclusions in 1590 and 1638. I will argue thorough the paper that the TE is best grasped when we analyse Galileo’s restriction, in the TE’s scenario and conclusion, to bodies of the same material or specific weight. Finally, I will draw out two implications for the debate on TEs.


2.             What notion of possibility should we use in assessing scientific thought experiments? Lato Sensu, 2017 (Young Researcher Prize SPS 2015-2016). Open access original version available here

It is usually claimed that in order to assess a thought experiment (hereafter TE) we should assess the nomological possibility, or realizability in principle, of its scenario. This is undoubtedly true for many TEs, such as Bohr’s reply to Einstein’s photon box. Nevertheless, in some cases, such as Maxwell’s demon, this requirement should be relaxed. Many accounts of TEs fail in this regard. In particular, experimental and some mental model accounts are too strict, since they always require realizability in principle. This paper aims at analysing the notion of possibility at play in the scenarios of scientific TEs, and sheds some new light on their nature and function.


1.             Unfolding in the empirical sciences: experiments, thought experiments and computer simulations (with Cyrille Imbert), Synthese, 2013. Open access available here

Experiments (E), computer simulations (CS) and thought experiments (TE) are usually seen as playing different roles in science and as having different epistemologies. Accordingly, they are usually analyzed separately. We argue in this paper that these activities can contribute to answering the same questions by playing the same epistemic role when they are used to unfold the content of a well-described scenario. We emphasize that in such cases, these three activities can be described by means of the same conceptual framework—even if each of them, because they involve different types of processes, fall under these concepts in different ways. We further illustrate our claims by presenting a threefold case study describing how a TE, a CS and an E were indeed used in the same role at different periods to answer the same questions about the possibility of a physical Maxwellian demon. We also point at fluid dynamics as another field where these activities seem to be playing the same unfolding role. We analyze the importance of unfolding as a general task of science and highlight how our description in terms of epistemic functions articulates in a noncommittal way with the epistemology of these three activities and accounts for their similarities and the existence of hybrid forms of activities. We finally emphasize that picturing these activities as functionally substitutable does not imply that they are epistemologically substitutable


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The philosophical literature on models and thought experiments have been developing exponentially and independently for decades. This independence is surprising, given how similar models and thought experiments are. They each have “lives of their own,”—they sit between theory and experience, are important for both pedagogy and cutting-edge science, galvanize conceptual changes and paradigm shifts, and involve considering imaginary scenarios and working out what happens. Recently, philosophers have begun to highlight these similarities. This entry aims at taking the idea further, by trying to systematically identify places where insights from one body of literature can be taken up in the other. Important differences will also be highlighted along the way. 

Work in Progress