I would've thought so, but I just saw some usage of philosophical thought experiments that only cited the authors and nothing else. Is that sufficient? A thought experiment is like "You are in a surgery, and they accidentally switch your memories with that of a psychotic killer, who is executed thus leaving your memories incapable of being recovered. Did you die?" If something like that exists and is essentially famous within philosophy, what are the citation rules? Is it open? I mean, theoretically I could merely change the example and make the point the same for any given situation. I wouldn't think someone can have a copyright on the logical form of an argument, but I'd prefer to give them credit rather than essentially repeat the argument with new variables. Does anyone know much about this, presuming I have ads? I won't bother dealing with these on blogs and such if it is.
My understanding is that "ideas" can't be copyrighted. Words and images can be copyrighted, but if you put the example into your own words, I'd think that should be fine - even better if you cite the original.