<b>The Role of Thought Experiments in Analytical Philosophy: Conceptual Engineering or Intuitive Mechanisms?</b>

<i>Analytical philosophy has utilized thought experiments as an important resource to test the boundaries of concepts, investigate intuitions and cultivate theories in the philosophical literature. However, the epistemic role and significance of thought experiments are still a matter of debate. This paper seeks to address the question of whether thought experiments amount to a final line of conceptual engineering; to see whether thought experiments invent and re-construct philosophical concepts or if they are something more like another kind of intuitional mechanism that allows us to elicit cognitive responses; the things we already think intuitively. This paper investigates a few central in debates on epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, this project evaluates the strengths and limitations of each view. I argue that thought experiments have typically relied on wholly intuitive judgments, but in keeping with contemporary questions of conceptual engineering, I will point out that this is not just any passive role, but rather it is one that is more judgmentally active. I will then help define new roles for thought experiments to adapt to contemporary analytical philosophy, using some recent experimental philosophy and cognitive science findings. Thought experiments have been significant devices for some time in analytical philosophy, either as a way to close the limits of concepts, push on the limits of intuitions, or develop theories of a philosopher. Yet their epistemic roles and rather inevitable methodological importance was and are the topic of increasing talk about. In this paper, we will explore if thought experiments are more contingent on the practice of conceptual engineering, that is, shaping and constructing our philosophy on the way, or thought experiments are more a form of intuition pump--- producing no clearly philosophically ideas but rather are tapping our epistemology and cognitive bias.</i>