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INTRODUCTION
I am honored to speak with you today about several topics close to my professional and personal heart. I say personal as well as professional because for some twenty years now my interest in the history of sociology has developed and deepened in tandem with the pioneering research conducted by my life-partner, Maiy Jo Deegan. Her work on Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918 (Deegan 1988a) has become the paradigm example for the "new history " in sociology, and it is my inspiration for today's discussion.
My topic today is "Sociological Thought Experiments." I will briefly introduce you to five exemplars drawn from the history of sociology, and conclude with my own example that asks, " What //the values and principles of Harriet Martineau, the first woman sociologist, were applied to sociology today and tomorrow?" That is to say, I hope to show that in seeking "alternative futures" for the discipline of sociology, there is a nice role for "thought experiments" to play in linking our disciplinary history to our disciplinary future. First, however, I must note the history of "thought experiments" in physics and philosophy, and outline a few pertinent conceptual issues that have been illuminated by the work of the late American sociologist, Erving Goffman.
1. WHAT IS A "THOUGHT EXPERIMENT"?
First, let us ask, "What is a thought exper imeni! But, let's be careful. This sort of question - together with the potential extensions and variations - can keep professional philosophers employed by the dozens for years at a time (see, for examples, the selected citations in the list of references, below): "What does it mean to think about a thought experiment?" "Are all thoughts experiments of a similar sort?" "When is a thought not an experiment?" "What is experimental thinking?" "Is it an experiment to ask if a thought is an experiment?" etc., etc. My tactic today is to avoid such philosophical play, enticing though it is, by simply ignoring it. This will not do intellectually in the long run, of course, but as a practical stratagem it keeps my discussion within the allotted time.2
In 1987, when I first wrote about thought experiments, in an article published in Teaching Sociology (Hill 1987), it was...