The Normativity of Imagination and the Evolution of Thought Experiments

According to Alisa Bokulich and Mélanie Frappier, understanding thought experiments (TEs) as Waltonian props for the imagination cannot explain their evolution, as their content is fixed by prescriptions to imagine – that is, fictional truths constrain researchers' imagination not to imagine otherwise. I suggest that the normative dimension of imagination is more flexible than Walton claims, especially in the context of TEs. Feyerabend's philosophy shows this by highlighting the fruitful role of violating prescriptions to imagine. I focus on the power of subjective imaginings to develop TEs-based debates. Readers of TEs are receptive researchers who rely on an initial fictional narrative to challenge the epistemic stance for which a TE was designed. This dialectical process can be framed through Waltonian notions of "work world" and "game worlds": the intersubjective set of fictional truths provided by a prop and the subjective imaginings of participants in the game of make-believe. According to Walton, proper players create their game worlds by building on the work world and trying to minimize mismatches. However, Feyerabend's philosophy emphasizes the importance of divergent game worlds. By violating fiction-based constraints, researchers engaged in a TE give their creative game worlds such a prominent role that they eventually evolved the work world itself.