This is the introduction to the Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments.

Sometimes we learn through the use of imagination. The epistemology of imagination asks how this is possible. One barrier to progress on this question has been a lack of agreement on how to characterize imagination; for example, is imagination a mental state, ability, character trait, or cognitive process? This paper argues that we should characterize imagination as a cognitive ability, exercises of which are cognitive processes. Following dual process theories of cognition developed in cognitive science, the set of imaginative processes (...) is then divided into two kinds: one that is unconscious, uncontrolled, and effortless, and another that is conscious, controlled, and effortful. This paper outlines the different epistemological strengths and weaknesses of the two kinds of imaginative process, and argues that a dual process model of imagination helpfully resolves or clarifies issues in the epistemology of imagination and the closely related epistemology of thought experiments. (shrink)

Heinrich Popitz’s Phenomena of Power aims to uncover power as “a universal component in the genesis and operation of human societies”. In order to uncover this “universal” concept of power, Popitz employs Husserl’s method of the “imaginative variation” [Phantasievariation]. Yet, contrary to phenomenology’s traditionally descriptive posture, Phenomena of Power’s project is at once descriptive and normative—seeking not only to describe power, but to also describe the way in which power can be remade. In the present paper it is argued that (...) this normative component of Popitz’s project offers the burgeoning field of critical phenomenology an illustration of the way in which Husserl’s “imaginative variation” might be employed not only as a descriptive tool of pure essences, but also as an instrument in the refashioning of social reality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to establish a phenomenological mathematical intuitionism that is based on fundamental phenomenological-epistemological principles. According to this intuitionism, mathematical intuitions are sui generis mental states, namely experiences that exhibit a distinctive phenomenal character. The focus is on two questions: what does it mean to undergo a mathematical intuition and what role do mathematical intuitions play in mathematical reasoning? While I crucially draw on Husserlian principles and adopt ideas we find in phenomenologically minded mathematicians such as (...) Hermann Weyl and Kurt Gödel, the overall objective is systematic in nature: to offer a plausible approach towards mathematics. (shrink)