Tracing the Development of Thought Experiments in the Philosophy of Natural Sciences

Summary  An overview is provided of how the concept of the thought experiment has developed and changed for the natural sciences in the course of the 20th century. First, we discuss the existing definitions of the term ‘thought experiment’ and the origin of the thought experimentation method, identifying it in Greek Presocratics epoch. Second, only in the end of the 19th century showed up the first systematic enquiry on thought experiments by Ernst Mach’s work. After the Mach’s work, a negative attitude towards thought experiments came in the beginning of the 20th century, which went on until the Thomas Kuhn’s and Karl Popper’s work on thought experiments. Only from the mid-1980s did thought experiments begin to be considered relevant to scientific enterprise. Finally, we show the existing empirical and ‘functional’ theories which have developed about the nature and purpose of thought experiments.     

The experience machine and the expertise defense

Recent evidence suggests that participants without extensive training in philosophy (so-called lay people) have difficulties responding consistently when confronted with Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine thought experiment. For example, some of the participants who reject the experience machine for themselves would still advise a stranger to enter the machine permanently. This and similar findings have been interpreted as evidence for implicit biases that prevent lay people from making rational decisions about whether the experience machine is preferable to real life, which might have consequences for one of the strongest objections to philosophical hedonism (the view that pleasure is the only intrinsic value). Against this consequence, it has been argued that expert philosophers are immune to such biases (the so-called expertise defense). In this paper, I report empirical evidence against this expertise defense.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder after motor vehicle accidents: 3-year follow-up of a prospective longitudinal study

The paper presents a 3-year follow-up of a prospective longitudinal study of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after motor vehicle accidents (J. Abnormal Psychol., 107 (1998) 508). Participants were 546 patients who had been assessed when attending an emergency clinic shortly after a motor vehicle accident, and at 3 months and 1 year afterwards. The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD at 3 years was 11%. Maintaining psychological factors, i.e. negative interpretation of intrusions, rumination, thought suppression and anger cognitions, were important in predicting the persistence of PTSD at 3 years, as were persistent health and financial problems after the accident. Other predictors were female sex, hospital admission for injuries, perceived threat and dissociation during the accident, and litigation.     

Age and ageing: What do they mean?

This article provides a philosophical overview of different approaches to age and ageing. It is often assumed that our age is determined by the amount of time we have been alive. Here, I challenge this belief. I argue that there are at least three plausible, yet unsatisfactory, accounts to age and ageing: the chronological account, the biological account, and the experiential account. I show that all of them fall short of fully determining what it means to age. Addressing these problems, I suggest the Two‐tier principle of age: whenever the three accounts of age contradict, combine the two accounts that differ the least, and reject the third. However, while this principle does solve some difficulties, it is itself vulnerable to problems; therefore I propose we should jettison it. I conclude that there are no accounts to ageing that are satisfactory; they all come with a bullet to bite.     

Who Is Afraid of the Chinese State? Evidence Calling into Question Political Fear as an Explanation for Overreporting of Political Trust

Public opinion polls show that political trust tends to be higher in authoritarian regimes compared to liberal democracies. Many scholars have argued that respondents may provide false answers out of fear about repercussions by the state, thereby skewing survey results in a positive direction. Using an unobtrusive measure based on affect transfer, we find that adult participants in experiments conducted in China transfer positive affect toward the state onto evaluations of television advertisements upon mere exposure to the name of a central party institution. Participants did not have incentives to lie because they did not associate the advertisements with the state. Furthermore, people who evaluated the ads more positively upon viewing the name of the state also reported more positive levels of trust in government. Together, these findings raise doubt that Chinese misrepresent political trust in surveys out of political fear.     

Territorial Conflicts and Japanese Attitudes Towards East Asian Countries: Natural Experiments with Foreigners' Landings on Disputed Islands

Japan disputes the sovereignty of two islands: Senkaku/Diaoyu with China and Takeshima/Dokdo with South Korea. These disputes have triggered political performances. In August 2012, Chinese activists landed on Senkaku/Diaoyu, and South Korean politicians landed on Takeshima/Dokdo. The group threat theory suggests that these events constitute threats to Japanese citizens, which lead to negative attitudes towards these countries. The theory also expects personal variations in the reactions to the threats, and the empirical findings of the theory predict an improvement in the worsened attitudes immediately after the event. Drawing on a Japanese social survey that was conducted every month for the two years during which these landing events occurred, I tested the effect of the events on Japanese attitudes towards China and South Korea in a natural experimental framework. The results show that the events negatively impacted Japanese attitudes towards both countries. However, contrary to the expectations of the group threat theory, individual variations (i.e., socioeconomic status, media exposure, and political orientation) in the responses to the events are not supported. Additionally, the attitudes do not return to preevent levels for one year. The contradictions between previous studies and this study potentially originate from the importance of the territories.     

Analytic Confidence and Political Decision‐Making: Theoretical Principles and Experimental Evidence From National Security Professionals

When making decisions under uncertainty, it is important to distinguish between the probability that a judgment is true and the confidence analysts possess in drawing their conclusions. Yet analysts and decision‐makers often struggle to define “confidence” in this context, and many ways that scholars use this term do not necessarily facilitate decision‐making under uncertainty. To help resolve this confusion, we argue for disaggregating analytic confidence along three dimensions: reliability of available evidence, range of reasonable opinion, and responsiveness to new information. After explaining how these attributes hold different implications for decision‐making in principle, we present survey experiments examining how analysts and decision‐makers employ these ideas in practice. Our first experiment found that each conception of confidence distinctively influenced national security professionals' evaluations of high‐stakes decisions. Our second experiment showed that inexperienced assessors of uncertainty could consistently discriminate among our conceptions of confidence when making political forecasts. We focus on national security, where debates about defining “confidence levels” have clear practical implications. But our theoretical framework generalizes to nearly any area of political decision‐making, and our empirical results provide encouraging evidence that analysts and decision‐makers can grasp these abstract elements of uncertainty.     

Temporal focus,temporal distance,and mind-wandering valence: Results from an experience sampling and an experimental study

When mind-wandering, people may think about events that happened in the past, or events that may happen in the future. Using experience sampling, we first aimed to replicate the finding that future-oriented thoughts show a greater positivity bias than past-oriented thoughts. Furthermore, we investigated whether there is a relation between the temporal distance of past- and future-oriented thoughts and the frequency of positive thoughts, a factor that has received little attention in previous work. Second, we experimentally investigated the relation between temporal focus, temporal distance, and thought valence. Both studies showed that future-oriented thoughts were more positive compared to past-oriented thoughts. Regarding temporal distance, thoughts about the distant past and future were more positive than thoughts about the near past and future in the experiment. However, the experience sampling study did not provide clear insight into this relation. Potential theoretical and methodological explanations for these findings are discussed.     

Methods for Influencing Social Policy: The Role of Social Experiments

Research methods in community psychology have grown more diverse since the Swampscott conference, but rigorous social experiments maintain a place among the multiplicity of methods that can promote community psychology values. They are particularly influential in policy circles. Two examples of social experiments to end homelessness for different populations illustrate their role. Both studies show that offering extremely poor and disenfranchised people autonomy and the resources they seek works better than “helping” them to overcome deficits in ways designed by well‐meaning service providers. Experiments are neither the first nor the last method community psychologists should employ, but are a critical part of the field's armamentarium for systems change.     

孟子王道理想的心性向度

王道理想是孟子政治哲学的核心,作为一套超乎现实却又对现实具有普遍导向意义的治国理念,其践行的基石被孟子归结在人的心性之上。立足于“心”孟子提出王道缘起于“仁”,基于“性”孟子断言王道的落实在于“义”;由“心”“性”的统一确立了仁义一体的构想,据此认为,“居仁由义”是王道理想得以向现实转化的基本思路。