Among destructive thought experiments, the following subtypes can be identified: the simplest of these is to draw out a contradiction in a theory, thereby refuting it. The first part of Galileo’s famous falling bodies example does this. It shows that in Aristotle’s account, a composite body (cannon ball and musket ball attached) would have to fall both faster and slower than the cannon ball alone. A second subtype is constituted by those thought experiments that aim to show that the theory in qu