From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical devices or communication tools or are they an essential part of scientific practice? This volume surveys the current state of the debate and explores new avenues of research into the epistemology of thought experiments.

From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical devices or communication tools or are they an essential part of scientific practice? This volume surveys the current state of the debate and explores new avenues of research into the epistemology of thought experiments.

The essays in this volume concern the points of intersection between analytic philosophy and the philosophy of the exact sciences. More precisely, it concern connections between knowledge in mathematics and the exact sciences, on the one hand, and the conceptual foundations of knowledge in general. Its guiding idea is that, in contemporary philosophy of science, there are profound problems of theoretical interpretation-- problems that transcend both the methodological concerns of general philosophy of science, and the technical concerns of philosophers of particular sciences. A fruitful approach to these problems combines the study of scientific detail with the kind of conceptual analysis that is characteristic of the modern analytic tradition. Such an approach is shared by these contributors: some primarily known as analytic philosophers, some as philosophers of science, but all deeply aware that the problems of analysis and interpretation link these fields together.

The essays in this volume concern the points of intersection between analytic philosophy and the philosophy of the exact sciences. More precisely, it concern connections between knowledge in mathematics and the exact sciences, on the one hand, and the conceptual foundations of knowledge in general. Its guiding idea is that, in contemporary philosophy of science, there are profound problems of theoretical interpretation-- problems that transcend both the methodological concerns of general philosophy of science, and the technical concerns of philosophers of particular sciences. A fruitful approach to these problems combines the study of scientific detail with the kind of conceptual analysis that is characteristic of the modern analytic tradition. Such an approach is shared by these contributors: some primarily known as analytic philosophers, some as philosophers of science, but all deeply aware that the problems of analysis and interpretation link these fields together.

Science and Hypothesis is a classic text in history and philosophy of science. Widely popular since its original publication in 1902, this first new translation of the work in over a century features unpublished material missing from earlier editions. Addressing errors introduced by Greenstreet and Halsted in their early 20th-century translations, it incorporates all the changes, corrections and additions Poincare made over the years. Taking care to update the writing for a modern audience, Poincare's ideas and arguments on the role of hypotheses in mathematics and in science become clearer and closer to his original meaning, while David J. Stump's introduction gives fresh insights into Poincare's philosophy of science. By approaching Science and Hypothesis from a contemporary perspective, it presents a better understanding of Poincare's hierarchy of the sciences, with arithmetic as the foundation, geometry as the science of space, then mechanics and the rest of physics. For philosophers of science and scientists working on problems of space, time and relativity, this is a much needed translation of a ground-breaking work which demonstrates why Poincare is still relevant today.

Science and Hypothesis is a classic text in history and philosophy of science. Widely popular since its original publication in 1902, this first new translation of the work in over a century features unpublished material missing from earlier editions. Addressing errors introduced by Greenstreet and Halsted in their early 20th-century translations, it incorporates all the changes, corrections and additions Poincare made over the years. Taking care to update the writing for a modern audience, Poincare's ideas and arguments on the role of hypotheses in mathematics and in science become clearer and closer to his original meaning, while David J. Stump's introduction gives fresh insights into Poincare's philosophy of science. By approaching Science and Hypothesis from a contemporary perspective, it presents a better understanding of Poincare's hierarchy of the sciences, with arithmetic as the foundation, geometry as the science of space, then mechanics and the rest of physics. For philosophers of science and scientists working on problems of space, time and relativity, this is a much needed translation of a ground-breaking work which demonstrates why Poincare is still relevant today.