This is a review of those key thought experiments in physics from the late 19th century onward that seem to have played a particular role in the process of the discovery or advancement of theory. Among others the paper discusses Maxwell's demon, several of Einstein's thought experiments in relativity, Heisenberg's microscope, the Einstein-Schrödinger cat, and the EPR thought experiment.

Is formal logic a failure? It may be, if we accept the context-independent limits imposed by Russell, Frege, and others. In response to difficulties arising from such limitations I present a Toulmin-esque social recontextualization of formal logic. The results of my project provide a positive view of formal logic as a success while simultaneously reaffirming the social and contextual concerns of argumentation theorists, critical thinking scholars, and rhetoricians.

In the article, referring to the method of rational reconstruction described by R. Rorty, an analysis of some works of J. Locke has been made in order to identify new prospects in John Locke's philosophy researches. As a result, it’s been demonstrated the presence of silence as an argument and a manifestation of respect J. Locke’s research of realms of cognition, political philosophy and philosophy of education. This is not covered in modern John Locke's philosophy researches. The authors emphasize that (...) J. Locke, although not directly exploring silence as an argument, however, describes the argument ad ignorantiam, the wording of which in the work «An Essay Concerning Human Understanding» and his understanding of tacit consent in the work «Two Treatises of Government» are related to silence as an argument and a manifestation of respect. The position that silence as an argument is present in all four arguments (argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad ignorantiam, argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad judicium) described by J. Locke is substantiated. Additionally, the argument ad ignorantiam can be considered both as an argument from silence (ex silentio argument) and as a kind of argument to silence. Considered arguments can serve as an argument to silence for the proponent and/or the third party, that is, anyone who is not directly involved in the dispute. Basing on J. Locke's explanation of the characteristic feature of tacit consent, that is, the absence of the expressed consent/disagreement, the possibility of distinguishing the indirect connection between tacit consent and the argument ad ignorantiam is demonstrated, since both tacit consent and the argument ad ignorantiam in J. Locke's works rely on the absence of expressed statements on the consent or disagreement of the opponent. It is established that the ideas of the education of children described by J. Locke also correlate with silence as an argument and a manifestation of respect. Applying the classification of the types of respect proposed by S. Hudson and complemented by R. Dillon to the use of the term «respect» to the various texts of J. Locke, it is substantiated that described by him respect covered almost all kinds of this classification. (shrink)

It is widely accepted by formal and informal logicians alike that a formal logic which, by the lights of English, gets the connectives wrong, nevertheless conspires to get entailment right—right that is, modulo English. There is a vexing problem occasioned by this semantic alienation of formal logic. It is next to impossible for formal logic to meet the expectations of realism. What, then, of informal logic?

Epistemology and informal logic have overlapping and broadly similar subject matters. A principle of methodological symmetry is: philosophical theories of sufficiently similar subject matters should engage similar methods. Suppose the best way to do epistemology is in highly formalized ways, with a large role for mathematical methods. The symmetry principle suggests this is also the best way to do the logic of the reasoning and argument, the subject matter of informal logic. A capitulation to mathematics is inimical to informal logicians, (...) yet formal methods and mathematical models are an emerging force in epistemology. What is to be done? What’s sauce for the goose of epistemology is sauce for the gander of informal logic. (shrink)