Participation and immersive imagination in thought experiments

Abstract

This paper argues that immersive participation is an epistemic strategy that shapes how thought experiments (“TEs”) are interpreted and contested within research communities. Building on Waltonian fictionalist approaches, I argue that their focus on work worlds and fictional truths leaves the productive role of immersion in TEs underexplored. By reinterpreting Hacking’s metaphor of performing a TE as acting a part in a play, I highlight three interrelated features of TEs’ participatory dimension: (i) their dual nature as both scripts and performances, (ii) the alternation between onlooker and participant stances, and (iii) the public status of immersion. I illustrate this proposal through Thomson’s Dying Violinist and Einstein’s Chasing the Light, showing how immersive features can guide ethical judgement and expose theoretical tensions. Finally, I argue that immersion is itself open to dialectical contestation: critics can redirect or dampen a TE’s immersive features in order to reshape its argumentative force. On this view, the epistemic value of immersive participation lies not in the accuracy of the experience it recreates, but in its capacity to open a shared space of contestation in which the strengths and limitations of TEs can be collectively tested.