Preface; Revisions Made; Summary of Contents; Chapter 1-Introduction; Chapter 2-Galileo (First Case Study); Chapter 3-The Ship of Theseus (Second Case Study); Chapter 4-Personal Identity (Third Case Study); Chapter 5-Conclusion; ;
1. Introduction;
1.1 Exceptional Cases;
1.1.1Characterization of Exceptional Case;
1.1.1.1 Exceptional Cases in Theories with Privileged Characteristics;
1.1.1.2 Exceptional Cases in Theories without Privileged Characteristcs;
1.1.2 Ways of Accounting for Exceptional Cases;
1.1.3 Patterns of Accounting;
1.1.4 Application to the Question at Hand;
1.2 Imaginary Cases;
1.3 Thought Experiments;
1.3.1 What is a Thought Experiment?;
1.3.2 The Tripartite Structure of Thought Experiments;
1.3.3 Three Sorts of Thought Experiments;
1.4 Appendix to Chapter 1;
2. Galileo;
2.1 Argumentative Reconstruction;
2.1.1 The Elimination Thesis;
2.1.2 Clarification of Terminology;
2.1.3 The Negative Argument and the Positive Argument;
2.1.4 The Dispensability Thesis and the Derivativity Thesis;
2.2 Galileo's Thought Experiment and its Reconstruction;
2.2.1 Galileo's Thought Experiment;
2.2.2 Reconstruction of the Galileo Case;
2.2.3 Four Ways out for the Aristtelian;
2.2.4 What the Reconstruction Misses;
2.3 Denying the Dispensability and Derivativity Theses;
2.3.1 Rejecting Reconstruction: What the Thought Experiment Does;
2.3.2 rejecting the Positive Argument: What Makes these Beliefs New?;
2.3.3 Rejecting the Negative Argument: What Makes these Beliefs Knowledge?;
2.3.4 Constructivism and the Contrast with Norton and Brown;
2.4 Conclusion;
3. Theseus;
3.1 Conceptual Thought Experiments;
3.2 The Story;
3.3 The Puzzle;
3.4 Is the Ship of Theseus an Exceptional Case?;
3.4.1 Automatic and Specially-Secured Identity;
3.4.2 Organisms, Artifacts, and Exceptional Cases;
3.5 Attempts to Dissolve the Problem;
3.5.1 Van Inwagen;
3.5.1.1 Identity Under a Sortal;
3.5.1.2 Summary;
3.5.2 Parfit;
3.6 Attempts to Solve the Problem;
3.6.1 A Traditional Solution: Hirsch;
3.6.2 A Meta-solution: Nozick;
3.7 The Proposed Diagnosis;
3.7.1 Some Very General Candidate Principles;
3.7.2 Remarks on the Candidates;
3.7.3 A Messier Puzzle;
3.7.4 The Proposed Diagnosis;
4. Personal Identity;
4.1 Introduction: The Facts of Life;
4. 2 Setting the Stage;
4.2.1 A Context for parfit's Argument;
4.2.2 What Fission Might Show;
4.3 The Argument and its Crucial Assumptions;
4.3.1 Parfit's Fission Argument;
4.3.2 Four Crucial Distinctions;
4.3.3 Comments on these Distinctions;
4.3.4 The Intrinsicness Premise;
4.3.5 Summary;
4.4 Two Unsuccessful Strategies;
4.4.1 An Unsuccefful Attack on the Intrinsicness Premise;
4.4.2 An Unsuccessful Defense of the Intrinsicness Premise;
4.5 Why is the Fission Argument so Compelling?;
4.5.1 The Casewise Explanatory Difference Principle;
4.5.2 The Casewise Explanatory Principle and the Method of Agreement;
4.5.3 Fission and the Method of Agreement;
4.6 How Absent Features can be Explanatory;
4.6.1 Human Bodies and Borrowed Luster;
4.6.2 Explaining Valuation;
4.6.3 Exceptions, Norms and Local Adaptation;
4.6.4 Prudential Concern in a World of Fission;
4.7 Conclusion;
4.7.1 Summary;
4.7.2 Larger Lessons;
5. Conclusion;
5.1 Factive Thought Experiments: Galileo;
5.2 Conceptual Thought Experiments: The Ship of Theseus;
5.3 Valuational Thought Experiments: Personal Identity;
6. Bibliographies;
6.1 Bibliography of Works Cited;
6.2 Bibliography on Galileo, Experiment and Thought Experiment;
6.3 Bibliography on Personal Identity and Identity;
6.4 Bibliography on Thought Experiment and Experiment; Index