@article {picha_m2011:2276,
	title = {How to Reconstruct a Thought Experiment},
	journal = {Organon F},
	volume = {18},
	number = {2},
	year = {2011},
	pages = {154-188},
	type = {State},
	abstract = {The paper is a contribution to the debate on the epistemological status of thought experiments. I deal with the epistemological uniqueness of experiments in the sense of their irreducibility to other sources of justification. In particular, I criticize an influential argument for the irreducibility of thought experiments to general arguments. First, I introduce the radical empiricist theory of eliminativism, which considers thought experiments to be rhetorically modified arguments, uninteresting from the epistemological point of view. Second, I present objections to the theory, focusing on the critique of eliminativism by Tamar Szab{\'o} Gendler based on the reconstruction of Galileo{\textquoteright}s famous Pisa experiment. I show that her reconstruction is simplistic and that a more elaborate reconstruction is needed for an appropriate assess-ment of the epistemic power of general argument. I propose such a reconstruction and demonstrate that the general version of the Pisa experiment is epistemically equal to the particular one. Thus, from an epistemological perspective, Galileo{\textquoteright}s thought experiment is reducible to a straightforward argument without particular premises.},
	url = {http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/doc/organon/2011/2/154-188.pdf},
	author = {Picha, Marek}
}
