Could a wheel be a product of nature? Or is a wheel necessarily (in some appropriate sense of ‘necessarily’) an artifact? The wheel is, of course, one of the simplest of human inventions but it is an invention – it does not copy nature. 32) that resemble human beings, but have wheels at the ends of their four limbs and move about by rolling on those wheels. Second, there is the idea of a peculiar race of beings called “wheelers” (p. Could a lunch box really be a product of nature? If not, why not? Could a mark that appeared naturally on a fruit and that was isomorphic with the English word ‘lunch’ mean lunch? If so, under what conditions? Each of these boxes contains a ham sandwich, a piece of sponge cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and an apple and each box is marked with the word ‘lunch’ on its side. Here are some of its thought experiments.įirst, there is the idea of a tree that bears lunch boxes and napkins as “fruit” (p. A story of intellectual adventure is a thought experiment (Gedank experiment), or perhaps a series of thought experiments, that explores problematic ideas, such as the notions of life, nature, consciousness, mood and temperament.įrank Baum’s Ozma of Oz (mercifully still in print!) is a splendid tale of intellectual adventure. Originally published in Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 1(2): 3.Įverybody knows that some children’s stories are adventure stories: but not everybody realizes that sometimes the adventure is intellectual. Frank Baum (Chicago: Rand mcNally, 1907).
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