Philosophy and Computers
Syllabus |
Fall, 2000
There are two required texts for the course:
- Luciano Floridi, Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction (London: Routledge,
1999)
- Bryan Cantwell Smith, On the Origin of Objects (Cambridge: MIT, 1996)
Many other books in this general area are of interest, including:
- Terrell Ward Bynum and James H. Moor, eds., The Digital Phoenix: How Computers
are Changing Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998)
- Patrick Grim et al., The Philosophical Computer: Exploratory Essays in Philosophical
Computer Modeling (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998)
- Leslie Burkholder, ed., Philosophy and the Computer (Boulder: Westview Press,
1992)
- Timothy Colburn, Philosophy and Computer Science: Problems and Applications
(M.E. Sharpe, 1999)
MW 12:30 - 1:30
TR 2:00 - 4:00
or by appointment.
I am usually in my office during office hours, but occasionally a meeting or another
commitment prevents this. If you just drop by during office hours, you will probably
find me in; if you want to see me at another time, or if you want to be certain I'll be
in, we can set up an appointment.
Grades will be based on the following work:
- Mid-term examination: 25%.
- Final examination: 25%. Scheduled for December 13 at 8:30 AM.
- Project: 35%. The project must include a substantial paper, which may be either a
conventional paper or a web site (although I would encourage the latter as a better way of
taking advantage of the technologies we will be discussing in class). Students have the
option of including a software project as part of the final project.
- Class participation, including presentations to the class: 15%. Each class member
will be responsible for researching at least one area in which computers are of relevance
for philosophy and presenting to the class a survey of work in this area. The final
project may, but need not be, in the area you survey in your class presentation. (If you
wish you may work in teams of two on the class presentations, but a team will need to
prepare two presentations rather than one.)
| Possible Topics and Readings |
Our detailed schedule will depend to some extent on the interests and experience of the
class.
I. The information technology revolution as a topic for philosophical investigation.
- Introduction.
Floridi, chapter 1.
- Foundational concepts: Turing machines, the Church-Turing thesis, supercomputing, etc.
Floridi, chapter 2 (to p. 40)
Selmer Bringsjord, "Philosophy and 'Super' Computation"
- More foundations: Boolean logic, von Neumann machines, etc.
Floridi, chapter 2 (p. 40 to end)
John Haugeland, Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea,
chapter 4
- The impact of the internet
Floridi, chapter 3
selections from Peter Ludlow, ed., High Noon on the Electronic
Frontier
- Infosphere, databases, hypertext
Floridi, chapter 4
II. Traditional philosophical topics to which computer science may be relevant.
- Philosophy of Mind: artificial intelligence
Floridi, chapter 5
David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, chapters 8, 9
- Metaphysics
Smith, On the Origin of Objects
Eric Steinhart, "Digital Metaphysics" (in The
Digital Phoenix)
raytracing as a metaphor for the appearance/reality distinction
- Ethics
Floridi, "Does Information Have a Moral Worth in Itself?"
Possible: particular moral issues raised by computers and
information technology, including:
- hacking, cracking, viruses
- privacy and encryption
- software, patents, property rights
- censorship
- Epistemology
John Pollock, "Procedural Epistemology"
Henry Kyburg, "Epistemology and Computing" (both in The
Digital Phoenix)
- Philosophy of Language
Herbert Simon, "The Computer as a Laboratory for
Epistemology"
material on natural language processing and natural language generation
III. Actual and possible uses of software and information technology for philosophical
research and teaching.