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The Productive Anarchy of Scientific Imagination

Stuart, Michael T. (2020) The Productive Anarchy of Scientific Imagination. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Imagination is important for many things in science: solving problems, interpreting data, designing studies, etc. Philosophers of imagination typically account for the productive role played by imagination in science by focusing on how imagination is constrained, e.g., by using self-imposed rules to infer logically, or model events accurately. But the constraints offered by these philosophers either constrain too much, or not enough, and they can never account for uses of imagination that are needed to break today’s constraints in order to make progress tomorrow. Thus, epistemology of imagination needs to make room for an element of epistemological anarchy.

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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Stuart, Michael T.mike.stuart.post@gmail.com0000-0002-4165-2641
Additional Information: To appear in Philosophy of Science
Keywords: epistemology of imagination; scientific imagination; thought experiments; epistemological anarchy
Subjects: General Issues > Evidence
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Thought Experiments
Depositing User: Michael T. Stuart
Date Deposited: 13 Aug 2020 01:19
Last Modified: 13 Aug 2020 01:19
Item ID: 17980
Subjects: General Issues > Evidence
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Thought Experiments
Date: 2020
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/17980

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