Noted in Wittgenstein's
Philosophische Grammatik, Part I, section VII, 106:
A thought experiment amounts to an experiment that one does not carry out, but rather sketches out, paints, or describes. And the result of the thought experiment is the imaginary result of the imaginary experiment.
In Book I of
Emile, or On Education, I find
I have chosen to give myself an imaginary pupil, to hypothesize that I have the age, health, kinds of knowledge, and all the talent suitable for working at his education, for conducting him from the moment of his birth up to the one when, become a grown man, he will no longer have need of any guide other than himself. This method appears to me useful to prevent an author who distrusts himself from getting lost in visions. He will soon sense, or the reader will sense for him, whether he follows the progress of childhood and the movement natural to the human heart.
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