awesome-thought-experiments

Knowledge, logic, time, and political philosophy: research audit

Verified retrieval date: 2026-10-30. This batch contains 25 entries. Sources were retrieved through web search and page opening. The main coverage is scholarly encyclopedia surveys, supplemented by primary texts for Russell and Plato and a university lecture for Nozick. A retrieved survey is not equivalent to independently checking every original book.

Brain in a Vat

• Article: brain-in-a-vat
• Historical statement: Reason, Truth and History (1981), chapter 1; earlier skeptical precursors.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism. Supports: Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response.

Descartes’s Evil Demon

• Article: evil-demon
• Historical statement: Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditation I.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism. Supports: Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dreams and Dreaming. Supports: Historical dream arguments and the distinction between dreaming and other skeptical scenarios.

The Dream Argument

• Article: dream-argument
• Historical statement: Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditation I; ancient precursors.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Dreams and Dreaming. Supports: Historical dream arguments and the distinction between dreaming and other skeptical scenarios.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Content Externalism and Skepticism. Supports: Cartesian skeptical hypotheses and the scope of Putnam’s semantic response.

Gettier Cases

• Article: gettier-cases
• Historical statement: “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (1963).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Analysis of Knowledge. Supports: Gettier cases, fake barns, historical attribution, and competing analyses of knowledge.

Fake-Barn Country

• Article: fake-barn
• Historical statement: Ginet’s example, published in Goldman’s “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge” (1976).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Analysis of Knowledge. Supports: Gettier cases, fake barns, historical attribution, and competing analyses of knowledge.
• Retrieved: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gettier Problems. Supports: Barn case and disagreement over its classification.

Molyneux’s Problem

• Article: molyneux-problem
• Historical statement: Letters to Locke (1688 and 1693); Locke’s Essay, second edition (1694).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Molyneux’s Problem. Supports: 1688 and 1693 letters, 1694 publication, empiricism, and empirical follow-up.
• Retrieved: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Molyneux’s Question. Supports: Philosophical framing of immediate visual recognition.

Russell’s Five-Minute World

• Article: russells-five-minute-world
• Historical statement: The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture IX: Memory.
• Retrieved: Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind (1921), Lecture IX: Memory. Supports: Original five-minute hypothesis and Russell’s explicit refusal to recommend it as a serious hypothesis.
• Retrieved: Michael Tooley, Knowledge of the Past, university course chapter. Supports: Discussion of Russell’s hypothesis and the problem of historical knowledge.

Sorites: When Does a Heap Begin?

• Article: sorites
• Historical statement: Ancient Greek tradition, fourth century BCE; attribution traditional.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Sorites Paradox. Supports: Ancient attribution, tolerance premises, and major accounts of vagueness.

The Liar Paradox

• Article: liar
• Historical statement: Ancient tradition; influential modern semantic treatments in the twentieth century.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Liar Paradox. Supports: Semantic structure, historical qualifications, and families of responses.

Russell’s Paradox

• Article: russells-paradox
• Historical statement: Discovery around 1901; letter to Frege (1902).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Russell’s Paradox. Supports: Discovery around 1901, unrestricted comprehension, and responses in set theory.

The Unexpected Hanging / Surprise Test

• Article: unexpected-hanging
• Historical statement: Modern discussion from the mid-twentieth century; exact origin uncertain.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemic Paradoxes. Supports: Surprise-test formulation and self-referential knowledge difficulties.

Buridan’s Ass

• Article: buridans-ass
• Historical statement: Medieval and later tradition; donkey formulation not found in Buridan’s writings.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John Buridan. Supports: Section 7: ass example absent from Buridan’s writings; earlier Aristotelian parallels.

Achilles and the Tortoise

• Article: achilles-and-tortoise
• Historical statement: Fifth century BCE; preserved and discussed by Aristotle.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zeno’s Paradoxes. Supports: Achilles argument, infinite series, and distinction between mathematical and physical issues.

The Grandfather Paradox

• Article: grandfather-paradox
• Historical statement: Older time-travel tradition; Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” (1976).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time Travel. Supports: Grandfather paradox, contextual ability, causal loops, and limits of philosophical possibility arguments.

The Bootstrap / Causal-Loop Paradox

• Article: bootstrap
• Historical statement: Longstanding time-travel tradition; modern philosophical analysis in Lewis (1976).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Time Travel. Supports: Grandfather paradox, contextual ability, causal loops, and limits of philosophical possibility arguments.

Laplace’s Demon

• Article: laplaces-demon
• Historical statement: Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (1814; later editions).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Causal Determinism. Supports: Laplace’s intelligence and the distinction between determinism, prediction, and fatalism.
• Retrieved: ETH-Bibliothek, digitized Laplace, Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Paris 1814. Supports: Cataloged 1814 edition for publication chronology.

Frankfurt Cases

• Article: frankfurt-cases
• Historical statement: “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” (1969).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral Responsibility and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. Supports: Frankfurt case, flickers of freedom, and objections to the proposed counterexample.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Compatibilism. Supports: Frankfurt’s Jones/Black case and contemporary responses to determinism.

Newcomb’s Problem

• Article: newcomb
• Historical statement: Formulated by Newcomb; published by Nozick in “Newcomb’s Problem and Two Principles of Choice” (1969).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Causal Decision Theory. Supports: Newcomb attribution, payoff structure, and causal/evidential recommendations.

The Consequence Argument

• Article: consequence-argument
• Historical statement: Modern formulations in Ginet (1966) and van Inwagen (1975, 1983).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Arguments for Incompatibilism. Supports: Consequence argument, transfer principles, and counterfactual responses.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Compatibilism. Supports: Frankfurt’s Jones/Black case and contemporary responses to determinism.

The Veil of Ignorance and Original Position

• Article: veil-of-ignorance
• Historical statement: A Theory of Justice (1971); later refinements.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position. Supports: Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules.

Wilt Chamberlain’s Earnings

• Article: wilt-chamberlain
• Historical statement: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).
• Retrieved: Ian Shapiro, Open Yale Courses, PLSC 118, Lecture 15: Compensation versus Redistribution. Supports: Nozick’s Chamberlain example and critical discussion of voluntary transfers.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position. Supports: Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules.

The State of Nature

• Article: state-of-nature
• Historical statement: Hobbes, Leviathan (1651); other authors construct importantly different versions.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Hobbes’s Moral and Political Philosophy. Supports: State of nature, insecurity, laws of nature, and qualified historical claims.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Original Position. Supports: Veil of ignorance, retained general knowledge, principles, and criticisms of decision rules.

The Ring of Gyges

• Article: ring-of-gyges
• Historical statement: Republic, Book II, fourth century BCE.
• Retrieved: Plato, Republic, Book II (Jowett translation). Supports: Primary narrative of the ring and Glaucon’s challenge.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic. Supports: Glaucon’s challenge and the distinction between justice itself and its rewards.

The Leveling-Down Objection

• Article: leveling-down
• Historical statement: Contemporary equality debate; Parfit’s “Equality and Priority” (1997).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Egalitarianism. Supports: Leveling-down objection, prioritarianism, and pluralist or relational responses.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Equality. Supports: Dworkin’s equal-resource auction, envy test, and responsibility questions.

Dworkin’s Resource Auction

• Article: dworkins-auction
• Historical statement: “What Is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources” (1981).
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Equality. Supports: Dworkin’s equal-resource auction, envy test, and responsibility questions.
• Retrieved: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Egalitarianism. Supports: Leveling-down objection, prioritarianism, and pluralist or relational responses.

Limitations and attribution decisions

• Many original books and papers were not read in full. For those entries, historical and argumentative claims were checked against the cited scholarly surveys, not against a complete primary-source collation.
• Russell’s five-minute hypothesis and Plato’s ring narrative were checked in online primary texts. Jowett’s Plato translation has historical interpretive choices.
• The 1814 Laplace edition was checked through ETH’s digitized catalog/OCR page; the conceptual account relies on the SEP determinism survey.
• The donkey is not found in Buridan’s writings; its name is preserved only with that warning.
• No definitive inventor is asserted for grandfather, bootstrap, or surprise-examination puzzles. Eubulides attribution is traditional.
• The original position and veil of ignorance share one article; barber is a Russell variation. Formal paradoxes, models, and arguments are labeled rather than misclassified as empirical experiments.
• Clinical vision restoration and modern physical theories are mentioned cautiously; no new empirical or technical consensus is inferred.
• External retrieval confirms access and source coverage at production time; it is not a guarantee of future URL availability.

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