The development of pragmatics has been shaped by thought experiments without which it could not have become an autonomous subfield of linguistics. However, their nature and their impact on current trends in pragmatics has not yet been made subject to systematic scrutiny. The book addresses that gap by confronting a central puzzle: How can thought experiments in pragmatics yield new experiential information about communication when they take place entirely within the researcher’s imagination. The volume offers a clear and original answer by showing that their power lies not in invention or speculation, but in a disciplined process of argumentative re evaluation of existing experiential knowledge.

The book is unique in at least two respects. First, it presents carefully elaborated case studies on Searle’s and Grice’s seminal thought experiments, which yield an original solution to the paradox. The key idea of the solution is that thought experiments in pragmatics neither generate new experiential information per se, nor are they mere speculations on imaginary situations. Rather, their novelty is rooted in the plausible argumentation process during which they cyclically and prismatically re-evaluate experiential information. Second, through this solution, the book contributes to the controversies on the semantics–pragmatics interface in particular as well as the methodological foundations of pragmatic research in general.

Written with conceptual clarity and supported by extensive engagement with current scholarship, this volume is of vital interest to researchers and advanced students in pragmatics, cognitive linguistics as well as the history and philosophy of linguistics.

András Kertész is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Debrecen (Hungary). He was elected as a Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2001 and of Academia Europaea in 2014. He holds an honorary doctorate since 2008, and in 2017 he received the Széchenyi Prize, which is the highest scientific award in Hungary. His fields of research are the History and Philosophy of Linguistics and Theoretical Linguistics. He is author or co-author of 15 monographs and more than 160 articles in refereed journals and collections of papers. His recent books include Data and evidence in linguistics: A plausible argumentation model (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019; with Csilla Rákosi); Inconsistency in linguistic theorizing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022; with Csilla Rákosi); Contemporary approaches to syntax: A comparative handbook (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2019; edited with Edith Moravcsik and Csilla Rákosi); and Diverging evidence in semantics and pragmatics (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2026, edited with Csilla Rákosi).