May 4, 2022 – 16:00. Edificio 14 (building 14), Sala Consiglio, piano VII (floor n.7), Via Bonardi 9 

Many thought experiments (TEs) are used to probe theoretical statements. One crucial strategy for doing this, or so I will argue, is the following. A TE reveals an inconsistency in part of our previously held, sometimes empirically well-established, theoretical statements. A thought experimenter or her critic then proposes a resolution in the form of a conjecture, a hypothesis that merits further investigation. To explore this characterisation of the epistemic function of such TEs, I first clarify the nature of the inconsistencies they reveal. Second, I describe a common structure for such inconsistency revealing/resolving TEs. I argue that such an epistemic account of TEs can be done without settling the question of which cognitive processes are involved in their performance; be they propositional or non-propositional. The upshot is that TEs’ reliability, like real experiments, is to be found, in part, in their replicability by the epistemic community, not in their cognitive underpinnings. For that, I formulate, following scientific practice, five strategies for the critic of a TE. I conclude by considering some ideas for generalising this account to all scientific TEs, at least in physics.