Philosophical Storytelling with Helen de Cruz

Philosophers enjoy telling stories. Sometimes the stories are very short, but they can be long and detailed as well, for example in the form of utopian narratives by More, Cavendish and others. Why do philosophers invent such stories, and what do they want to accomplish with them? Helen de Cruz argues that existing accounts of thought experiments cannot easily explain the range and variety of thought experiments. In her view, philosophical thought experiments are not merely prettily dressed up arguments. Neither are they only mental models or intuition pumps. Rather, thought experiments help us through a variety of tools that fictions employ to get rid of certain biases and preconceptions, and thus to look at a philosophical idea with a fresh perspective.

Helen de Cruz holds the Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University. Her main areas of specialization are philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of religion and she also works in general philosophy of science, epistemology, aesthetics, and metaphilosophy. She is the co-editor of Philosophy and science fiction stories (2021) and author of Philosophy Illustrated (2021)