ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at three issues. It investigates the identity conditions of thought experiment: under which conditions does a methodological device count as thought experiment and when should one regard a device as something else, even if it resembles thought experiment. Second, it inquires where and when thought experiment is practised: in which philosophical and scientific discourses does the practice of thought experiment occur. Third, it considers the conditions under which thought experiment carries weight: in which contexts and on which presupposition does thought experiment acquires evidential significance, and where is it evidentially inert. The chapter aims to problematize the category of thought experiment and its application in different historical and cultural contexts. It has presented arguments and evidence for an alternative, historicist view of the evidential significance of thought experiment. The outcome is that the domain of application of the category "thought experiment" is much narrower that one might have expected.
