Explaining, Seeing, and Understanding in Thought Experiments

In this paper, I analyze the relation between visualization and explanatory understanding in thought experiments. I discuss two thought experiments from special relativity. Both cases lead to a paradox, which can, however, be explained (away) as non-contradictory. The resolution in one of the two cases sheds light on the nature of thought experiments more generally by indicating what sort of thing it is that we see when we are observing events in the mind’s own laboratory. And it will in turn shed light on the notions of explanation and understanding as they arise in thought experiments.