Mais la fantaisie est-elle un privilège des seuls poètes? Schlick on a ‘Sinn-kriterium’ for Thought Experiments

Ever since the term \u2018thought experiment\u2019 was coined by 8rsted, phi-losophers have struggled with the question of how thought experiments manage to provide knowledge. Ernst Mach\u2019s seminal contribution has eclipsed other approaches in the Austrian tradition. I discuss one of these neglected approaches. Faced with the challenge of how to recon-cile his empiricist position with his use of thought experiments, Moritz Schlick proposed the following \u2018Sinnkriterium\u2019: a thought experiment is meaningful if it allows to answer a question under discussion by imag-ining the experiences that would confi rm that the thought experimental scenario is actual. I trace this view throughout three exemplary thought experiments of Schlick\u2019s.Ever since the term \u2018thought experiment\u2019 was coined by 8rsted, philosophers have struggled with the question of how thought experiments manage to provide knowledge. Ernst Mach\u2019s seminal contribution has eclipsed other approaches in the Austrian tradition. I discuss one of these neglected approaches. Faced with the challenge of how to reconcile his empiricist position with his use of thought experiments, Moritz Schlick proposed the following \u2018Sinnkriterium\u2019: a thought experiment is meaningful if it allows to answer a question under discussion by imagining the experiences that would confi rm that the thought experimental scenario is actual. I trace this view throughout three exemplary thought experiments of Schlick\u2019s