The Role of Thought Experiments in Scientific Knowledge

This podcast explores the philosophical foundations of scientific knowledge, as presented in a critical examination of the use of thought experiments in the natural sciences. The author classifies thought experiments into various categories, highlighting a special type called "platonic" thought experiments that can both refute existing theories and establish new ones.

The key argument made is that these platonic thought experiments provide a priori knowledge about the physical world - knowledge that is independent of sensory experience and not derived solely from existing data. Drawing parallels to mathematical platonism, the author suggests that just as we can perceive abstract mathematical objects, we can also perceive abstract entities like laws of nature through thought experiments.

The podcast delves into the nature of laws of nature, advocating for a realist view that understands laws as relations between independently existing abstract entities. It then uses the famous EPR thought experiment and its implications from the Bell results to demonstrate the limitations of the causal theory of knowledge, arguing that knowledge can exist without a causal connection to the thing known.

This thought-provoking exploration challenges traditional empiricist views and offers a nuanced understanding of the role of thought experiments in our scientific understanding of the natural world.