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Inverse View
It is not the case that Any thought experiment is really a (possibly disguised) argument.
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Reasons For
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Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
Thought experiments like Galileo's falling bodies generate knowledge through imaginative intuition, not explicit inferential steps.
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2.
If the epistemic work is done by phenomenal imagination rather than inference, the argument-reconstruction is post-hoc rationalization, not the experiment itself.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Brown argues that thought experiments give us direct a priori access to Platonic laws of nature, bypassing argument entirely.
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2.
If some thought experiments yield conclusions that outstrip any premises the experimenter could have articulated beforehand, they cannot be reconstructed as arguments without circularity.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
A thought experiment starts with premises grounded in experience.
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2.
A thought experiment follows deductive or inductive rules of inference in arriving at its conclusion.
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