The philosophic thought experiments we have are made by a class of philosophers who have high intelligence and who are incentivised to create good thought experiments. Creating a new thought experiments that gets used by other philosophers means that those will likely cite your papers and is thus valuable for any philosopher.
To the extend that the thought experiments we have are bad by your standards it’s likely that the philosophic community has different standards of what makes a thought experiment worth talking about then you.
If you think there’s a problem worth fixing it would be worth to understand where your standards differ from that of the philosophic community and whether you have arguments why your standards would be better.
So a “good” thought experiment in the philosophic community is one that generates lots of citations and academic prestige. This seems to have heavy network/first-mover/lock-in effects. Also, an emphasis on drama and counter-intuitiveness and communicating with academics. There’s surely some selection pressure for thought experiments that “allow difficult and contentious problems to be understood, remembered, and referred to”, for example, but it seems to be pretty weak compared to the other factors.
The philosophic thought experiments we have are made by a class of philosophers who have high intelligence and who are incentivised to create good thought experiments. Creating a new thought experiments that gets used by other philosophers means that those will likely cite your papers and is thus valuable for any philosopher.
To the extend that the thought experiments we have are bad by your standards it’s likely that the philosophic community has different standards of what makes a thought experiment worth talking about then you.
If you think there’s a problem worth fixing it would be worth to understand where your standards differ from that of the philosophic community and whether you have arguments why your standards would be better.
So a “good” thought experiment in the philosophic community is one that generates lots of citations and academic prestige. This seems to have heavy network/first-mover/lock-in effects. Also, an emphasis on drama and counter-intuitiveness and communicating with academics. There’s surely some selection pressure for thought experiments that “allow difficult and contentious problems to be understood, remembered, and referred to”, for example, but it seems to be pretty weak compared to the other factors.