University of Cincinnati

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

University of Cincinnati UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI _____________ , 20 _____ I,______________________________________________, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of: ________________________________________________ in: ________________________________________________ It is entitled: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Approved by: ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ CRITICAL VALUES: FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND THE COMPUTING SCIENCES A dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) in the Department of Philosophy of the College of Arts and Sciences 2003 by Catherine Elizabeth Sherron B. Phil., Miami University, 1992 M.A., University of Tennessee, 1994 Committee Chair: Chris J. Cuomo, Ph.D. University of Cincinnati Abstract Critical Values: Feminist Philosophy of Science and the Computing Sciences by Catherine Elizabeth Sherron Committee Chair: Professor Chris J. Cuomo Department of Philosophy My dissertation is an examination of the intersections between epistemology, philosophy of science, and feminist theory. Feminist philosophy of science creates new and valuable ways of looking at the sciences by using gender as a category of analysis, or a lens through which to critically assess and constructively build projects in science, as well as in the philosophy of science. I employ feminist philosophy of science and a gendered lens in particular to examine the computing sciences. Starting specifically from the underrepresentation of women in computing, the project creates a platform for exploring the dimensions and contributions of feminist philosophy of science. This is not merely a critique of philosophy of science or a feminist review of computing, but a positive project in its own right, examining the epistemological structure of scientific inquiry, including the nature of objectivity, epistemic agency and the composition of an epistemic community, the importance of those epistemic communities, and the role of values in science. A central tenet of the work is that objectivity in science does not require leaving personal and political commitments at the lab door, but that social, ethical, cultural, and other values play a foundational epistemological role in science. Using gender as a lens uncovers some of those values for critical evaluation. This is not to deny the importance of the natural, empirical world in science. I argue that a philosophical position must at minimum account for our actual relationships—emotional, embodied, social, etc.—in the world and their impact on our theorizing and that dismissing the embodied experience of scientists results in a diminished understanding of the world in addition to diminished epistemological theories. Acknowledgements I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Chris Cuomo, who could see the merit and completion of this dissertation long before I could. My project and I have flourished in no small part thanks to her. My other committee members, Bob Richardson and John McEvoy, have been generous, supportive, and tremendously helpful in reviewing drafts of this dissertation, which is much improved for their insightful comments. Errors and confusions that remain are solely my own. I am also deeply indebted to Thomas More College, its talented faculty and staff, all of whom have been overwhelmingly supportive emotionally, editorially, and financially. I am grateful to be able to continue to working with these energetic people who have taught me so much about the academic life. I wish to thank my students and my colleagues, in particular Siobhan Barone, Bob Berger, Joe Cronin, Dale Myers, Jim Nelson, Julie Perry, Sherry Cook Stanforth, Jim Schuttemeyer, and Father Gerald Twaddell. Many old friends have counseled me through what was at times a rather arduous process. Thank you Julie, Zac, Colene, Wags, and Jana. Many new friends found at the Women, Work and Computerization 2000 Conference and at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2002 encouraged and inspired me. While I did not know the late Anita Borg personally, her passion for developing the presence and talents of women in computing was contagious. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the loving support of my family: John and Crystal Sherron, John and Cathy Sherron, Mike and Christel Sherron, Everett Sherron, Christine Young, and especially my new husband, Randy Lee Bailey, for keeping me healthy. I dedicate my dissertation to all of them. Table of Contents Introduction 2 Chapter One Stepping Stones: From Feminist Science Scholarship 13 to Artificial Intelligence Chapter Two Critical Values and the Character of Feminist 34 Philosophy of Science Chapter Three Computing and Feminist Philosophy of Science 63 Chapter Four Social Epistemology 89 Chapter Five Competition in Science 121 Chapter Six Embodiment and Embeddedness in AI: 161 Drafting a Model of Intelligence Chapter Seven Computing Women 197 Conclusion Future Paths 221 References 229 1 CRITICAL VALUES: FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND THE COMPUTING SCIENCES This project originated with reading Helen Longino’s Science as Social Knowledge in a philosophy of science course. My undergraduate training had left me somewhat jaded with regard to feminist projects, yet to my surprise, I could not resist Longino’s explicitly feminist analysis in philosophy of science and of science itself. How could there be so much disagreement in science, I wondered? I was convinced by Longino’s argument but perplexed by the conclusion. What was at stake seemed to be the very thing that gave science its power: objectivity. A course in feminist epistemologies and more research uncovered more jewels: Sandra Harding’s strong objectivity stemming in part from her work with science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist theories; Lynn Hankinson Nelson’s discussions about epistemic agents; and Nancy Tuana’s work on embodiment in epistemology. The beginning of my interest in computing is less well-defined. My interest in physics and chemistry was not strong enough to pursue extended study of them, which I thought would be necessary for a grounding of further study in philosophy of science. Biology was interesting to me, but after assisting with a computer ethics course, I decided to pursue a series of courses in programming, data structures, and artificial intelligence (AI). Eventually I discovered that although there had been some exploration of issues surrounding gender in the computing sciences and technology, the approaches were more sociological rather than philosophical, or specifically, epistemological. Thus, there seemed to be a gap in the philosophical literature addressing broader concerns of feminist philosophy of science in the computing sciences, Introduction including AI. Alison Adam’s book, Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine, helped me to start to connect issues in feminist philosophy of science to computing, particularly issues of social, cultural, and ethical values of scientists and their impact on objectivity. It was Adam’s book that introduced me to the AI project called Cyc. Attending professional computer and technology conferences such as the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and the Women, Work and Computerization Conference provided further exposure to computing professionals, mostly women, who were working on problems which I found quite compelling. One set of questions concerned the small numbers of women in computing, why more women were not pursuing degrees and careers in computing, and what, if anything computing professionals, societies, both in and outside of the academy, should or could do about this “shrinking pipeline” as the concern has become labeled. It was these questions which opened up the broader philosophical issues addressed in this dissertation. What are those issues? In a nutshell, they begin with concerns about the low level of participation by women in computing, and focus on gendered aspects of computing which might explain those low levels, but also serve as the basis of broader and more general critiques of computing. Using gender as a lens for investigation has led me to concerns about how computing is taught, what kinds of projects are appropriately pursued in computing, why one might want to pay attention to the composition of the computing profession, and which epistemological commitments are encoded in those projects and teachings. Christina Björkman’s (2002) work in gender studies and computing has been invaluable for assisting my thoughts on, especially, the nature of computing and some of its epistemological commitments. A discipline’s guiding metaphor has many values embedded within it and those values guide the teaching, development, and practice of the discipline. For example, Lynn Stein (1999) argues 3 Introduction that computing interpreted through the metaphor of a sequentially ordered series of steps to a specific goal—computation—abstracts too much away from the real processes of computing. She suggests as a replacement the metaphor of a community of interacting entities. It is the great power and ubiquity of computing that magnifies the importance of what might otherwise
Recommended publications
  • The Passage of a Transdisciplinary Movement Through an All-Too-Brief Moment in Time. Review of the Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We
    Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Cognitive Systems Research 43 (2017) 119–124 www.elsevier.com/locate/cogsys Book review The Passage of a Transdisciplinary Movement through an All-Too-Brief Moment in Time. Review of The Cybernetics Moment: or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age, Ronald R. Kline. Johns Hopkins (2015). 336 pp. Action editor: Peter Erdi Peter Cariani Center for Hearing Research, Boston University, United States Received 30 December 2016; accepted 31 December 2016 Available online 27 February 2017 1. Review bemoan the thin index and lack of a separate bibliography. Here is where the text-searchable, electronic Kindle edition The Cybernetics Moment focuses on the history of could come in handy. The wealth of details that Kline has cybernetics and information theory in the US as mid-20th amassed will create many small surprises and revelations in century research programs during the period of roughly the minds of those already familiar with cybernetics and 1940–1975. Kline’s scholarly yet highly readable book pur- information theory. But because relatively little effort is sues three major intertwined threads: cybernetics, informa- devoted to introducing the essential ideas of these move- tion theory and the information age. The text mainly ments, readers less familiar with these fields may find the presents the interactions between major players in these going a bit tougher. fields in a roughly chronological order. For the most part, The book complements a relatively small but growing the book’s trails revolve around Norbert Wiener, Claude historical literature on cybernetics research that includes Shannon, and the Macy conferences on cybernetics Steve Heims’ John von Neuman and Norbert Wiener: From (1946–1953).
    [Show full text]
  • Coming Close: What an Interview Can Reveal About Creativity in the Contemporary Art Music Composer
    JOURNAL OF OF RESEARCH ONLINE MusicA JOURNAL OF THE MUSIC COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA COMING CLOSE: WHAT AN INTERVIEW CAN REVEAL ABOUT CREATIVITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART MUSIC COMPOSER Introduction RICHARD WILLGOSS he term ‘creativity’, used linguisticly in a musical context, gains a first significance by being used to describe a value judgement on a composer’s output, both as a score and a performance. The relevance of an investigation ■ Sydney Conservatorium of Music Tinto why and how the term is used in this context then gains a second significance University of Sydney in that, buried within being creative, are notions as to why some music is selectively Sydney , New South Wales valued, rather than all of what is on offer. These two premises find weak support from Australia, 2000 parametric approaches to their substantiation. However, gathering and interpreting information in a rational, sensible way should always remain an important step to understanding the subject matter. The major difficulty in resolution that arises is with assumptions made about what might be found, and upon what epistemology it should be based. [email protected] Art music composers create compositions that mainly sit as innovations on or extensions to the western classical music tradition. The use of the term in this research is not meant to imply any elitism or intellectual, social or cultural bias. However, it is innovations on, and links that can be made to, the present classical tradition (or lack of them) that often give rise to calling art music creative. Composers who choose to compose in this manner often devote much of their compositional efforts to this www.jmro.org.au end.
    [Show full text]
  • Critical Mass: Collectivity and Collaboration in the History Of
    CRITICAL MASS: COLLECTIVITY AND COLLABORATION IN THE HISTORY OF MULTI-AGENT INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS By Rachel Bergmann Department of Art History and Communication Studies McGill University, Montreal November 2019 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Communication Studies © Rachel Bergmann 2019 Table of Contents List of Figures i Abstract/Résumé ii Acknowledgements iii Introduction 1 The Need for a Longer History 3 Notes on Terminology 13 Chapter Outline 15 Chapter 1: “The Vietnamese Don’t Live on the Quarter System”: Countercultural Politics at SRI and SAIL 18 Building a Lab’s Culture 21 “Zoe Pictures 1971” 26 The Other Lab: SRI and the Anti-War Movement 36 Conclusion 43 Chapter 2: Critical Mass: Protocol Feminism in AI Research 45 Forming the network 51 People and language itself: feminist AI research protocols 61 Conclusions and contradictions 65 Chapter 3: Whose SharedPlans? Scripts, Collaboration, and Feminist AI Research 68 Scripts, Plans, and SharedPlans 71 Going off-script: resonances in STS and feminist theory 81 Destabilizing the master-slave analogy in AI 85 Multi-Agent Systems and the limits of feminist AI research 89 Conclusion 93 Bibliography 108 Figures Figure 1. Home page of SAILDART.org. 20 Figure 2. Photo of the D.C. Power Building. 23 Figure 3. “Engineering School Seeks to Enrol More Women.” The Stanford Daily, 1973. 27 Figure 4. “Join the Women’s Liberation.” The Stanford Daily, 1969. 28 Figure 5. “Make $3,000 by Jply If You Are Female, Attractive, Uninhibited.” The Stanford Daily, 1971. 32 Figure 6.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Process of Creation: a New Approach DOI: 10.7595/Management.Fon.2017.0021
    Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerging Economies 2017/22(3) Gennady Shkliarevsky1 Bard College, USA Understanding the Process of Creation: a New Approach DOI: 10.7595/management.fon.2017.0021 Abstract: Our contemporary civilization increasingly relies on creative approaches and solutions. This grow- ing dependence makes issues of control, regulation and management of the process of creation ever more important.This article finds two major current theoretical perspectives on creativity and the process of creation to be vulnerable in one important respect: their explanation of the production of disequilibrium, which plays a singularly important role in the process of creation, does not pass the test of rational justification. This arti- cle suggests that the production of disequilibrium is intimately related to equilibration — the essential opera- tion of rational thought processes. The emphasis on the role equilibration makes a rational justification of the production of disequilibrium possible. The new theoretical perspective opens the path toward a comprehen- sive and objective understanding of the process of creation, which is the main condition for regulating, con- trolling, and managing this process. Key words: Creativity, the process of creation, equilibration, the production of disequilibrium, Margaret Boden, computation. JEL classification: B59,O31 1. Introduction Every age has its defining characterization. If one had to choose a characterization for our age, the most likely candidate would be “the era of creativity” (Kirstetter et al., 2013). Creativity is at the center of public atten- tion. It is the subject of discussions by politicians, scientists, business people, media and public figures, and by ordinary people.
    [Show full text]
  • Boden Grey Walter's
    Grey Walter’s Anticipatory Tortoises Margaret Boden Grey Walter and the Ratio Club The British physiologist William Grey Walter (1910–1977) was an early member of the interdisciplinary Ratio Club. This was a small dining club that met several times a year from 1949 to 1955, with a nostalgic final meeting in 1958, at London’s National Hospital for Neurological Diseases. The founder-secretary was the neurosurgeon John Bates, who had worked (alongside the psychologist Kenneth Craik) on servomechanisms for gun turrets during the war. The club was a pioneering source of ideas in what Norbert Wiener had recently dubbed ‘cybernetics’.1 Indeed, Bates’ archive shows that the letter inviting membership spoke of ‘people who had Wiener’s ideas before Wiener’s book appeared’.2 In fact, its founders had considered calling it the Craik Club, in memory of Craik’s work—not least, his stress on ‘synthetic’ models of psychological theories.3 In short, the club was the nucleus of a thriving British tradition of cybernetics, started independently of the transatlantic version. The Ratio members—about twenty at any given time—were a very carefully chosen group. Several of them had been involved in wartime signals research or intelligence work at Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing had used primitive computers to decipher the Nazis’ Enigma code.4 They were drawn from a wide range of disciplines: clinical psychiatry and neurology, physiology, neuroanatomy, mathematics/statistics, physics, astrophysics, and the new areas of control engineering and computer science.5 The aim was to discuss novel ideas: their own, and those of guests—such as Warren McCulloch.
    [Show full text]
  • What Has Life Got to Do with Mind? Or Vice Versa? (Thoughts Inspired by Discussions with Margaret Boden.)
    Talk presented at Workshop for Margaret Boden, Sussex University 22 May 2009 What Has Life Got To Do With Mind? Or vice versa? (Thoughts inspired by discussions with Margaret Boden.) See: M. A. Boden, Autopoesis and life, in Cognitive Science Quarterly, 2000, 1, 1, pp. 115–143, M. A. Boden, 2006, Mind As Machine: A history of Cognitive Science (Vols 1–2), OUP 2006 Chapters 15.x.b and 16.x Aaron Sloman http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/∼axs/ These slides will go into my ‘talks’ directory: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/talks/#maggie PLACE DATE Slide 1 Last revised: November 13, 2009 Schedule for the Meeting Friday 22nd May 2009, Arts Building B University of Sussex, Falmer 14:00-14:45 Aaron Sloman 14:45-15:30 Ron Chrisley 15:30-16:00 discussion 1 16:00-16:30 break 16:30-17:15 Mike Wheeler 17:15-18:00 Steve Torrance & Blay Whitby 18:00-18:30 discussion 2 Chairperson: Paul Davies Organiser: Tanja Staehler PLACE DATE Slide 2 Last revised: November 13, 2009 Margaret Boden Some of the information on her web site Fellow (and former Vice-President) of the British Academy – and Chairman of their Philosophy Section until July 2002. Member of the Academia Europaea. Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Fellow of the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI). Life Fellow of the UK’s Society for Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (SSAISB). Member of Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Former Vice-President (and Chairman of Council) of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
    [Show full text]
  • Enactive Theorists Do It on Purpose
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Mary Immaculate Research Repository and Digital Archive Enactive Theorists Do It On Purpose On why the enactive approach demands an account of goals and goal-directedness Marek McGann Departmen of Psychology, Mary Immaculate College ~ University of Limerick Abstract The enactive approach to cognitive science involves frequent references to “action” without making clear what is intended by the term. In particular, no definition or account is offered of goals which can encompass not just descriptions of biological maintenance, but the range of social and cultural activities in which human beings continual engage. The present paper briefly surveys some of references to goals and goal-directedness in the cognitive scientific literature in an attempt draw out an account which might successfully fill this gap in theory. Finding no easy answer, some suggestions are made as to how such a theory might be developed in the future. Introduction We've been hearing a lot, recently, about how the mind is much more active than traditional cognitive science gives it credit for. Much is being made of how the mind should best be understood as dynamically embodied – deeply and inextricably embedded in its environment, in constant negotiation with context. Of course, the mind in traditional (computational and representational) theories of mind was never a passive thing. It developed, manipulated, transformed and pondered representations from dawn to dusk (and mulled over dreams in between). It is the reintroduction of the body that has challenged the largely received view of the representational mind – it is the body (and its movements in space and its metabolic relationship with the world) that has become much more actively involved in the mind than it used to be.
    [Show full text]
  • A Preliminary Framework for Description, Analysis and Comparison of Creative Systems
    Knowledge-Based Systems 19 (2006) 449–458 www.elsevier.com/locate/knosys A preliminary framework for description, analysis and comparison of creative systems Geraint A. Wiggins Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK Received 23 January 2006; accepted 15 April 2006 Available online 12 June 2006 Abstract I summarise and attempt to clarify some concepts presented in and arising from Margaret Boden’s (1990) descriptive hierarchy of creativity, by beginning to formalise the ideas she proposes. The aim is to move towards a model which allows detailed comparison, and hence better understanding, of systems which exhibit behaviour which would be called ‘‘creative’’ in humans. The work paves the way for the description of naturalistic, multi-agent creative AI systems, which create in a societal context. I demonstrate some simple reasoning about creative behaviour based on the new framework, to show how it might be useful for the analysis and study of creative systems. In particular, I identify some crucial properties of creative systems, in terms of the framework components, some of which may usefully be proven a priori of a given system. I suggest that Boden’s descriptive framework, once elaborated in detail, is more uniform and more powerful than it first appears. Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction identify desirable and undesirable properties of creative systems in abstract terms. One of the few attempts to address the problem of cre- Next, I will define some crucial properties of (artificial) ative behaviour in the early days of AI was that of Marga- creative systems in terms of the framework, including some ret Boden, perhaps best summarised in her book, The which might be proven a priori and some which may be Creative Mind [2].
    [Show full text]
  • Computational Creativity | a Multi-Perspective Approach
    Keynote Abstract Computational Creativity | A Multi-perspective Approach Key words: computational creativity, Cybernetics, Gordon Pask, Recombinant Poetics, Recombinant Informatics, learning systems, multi-perspective approach. Biological Computer Laboratory, Heinz von Foerester In this talk I will discuss Computational Creativity | A multi-perspective Approach. Building on historical references to cybernetics and artificial intelligence, I will also introduce my more recent collaborative research with Otto Rössler on Neosentience, which holds great potential for the future of creativity involving robotics and learning systems. These ideas will be further elaborated and amplified with concrete examples from my artistic practice, including The Many Senses Engine (with Todd Berreth), on display at the festival exhibition. Computational Creativity | A Multi-perspective Approach Margaret Boden in her book Creativity and Art defines creativity as “the ability to come up with ideas or artifacts that are new, surprising, and valuable.”1 Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer early on saw hypothetical creative potentials for computational operations: The Analytical Engine is an embodying of the science of operations, constructed with particular reference to abstract number as the subject of those operations... Again, it [The Analytical Engine emphasis the author] might act upon other things beside number were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptions to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine. Supposing for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expressions and adaptions, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent..
    [Show full text]
  • The Creative Process and Reality
    The Creative Process and Reality An analysis of search and cognition in the creative process and a call for an ecological cognitive framework for creativity research by Bo T. Christensen Redaktionsgruppen består af: Lars Hem (ansv.redaktør), Mogens Agervold, Birgitte Diderichsen, Jens Mammen og Thomas Nielsen. Sekretariat: Ingrid Graversen Psykologisk Studieskriftserie kan bestilles skriftligt eller pr. telefon (89424900). Bo T. Christensen UDGIVET PÅ PSYKOLOGISK INSTITUT AARHUS UNIVERSITET, ASYLVEJ 4, 8240 RISSKOV RISSKOV, 2002 Tryk: Institut for Statskundskab FOREWORD The present dissertation is not only interesting in its analysis of the creative process. It is also itself a substantial and creative contribution to psycho- logical theory and the development of fundamental scientific concepts. There are apparent paradoxes in the traditional understanding of creativity, as there seems to be an insurmountable gap between the objective reality of existing objects and qualities and the subjective creation of the new and surprising. Bo Christensen suggests a convincing solution to these para- doxes by expanding the reduced and often implicit ontology of most psy- chological theory. The objective category of the factually existing is sup- plemented with the possible and the impossible. And the category of ob- jects’ qualitative identity is supplemented with their numerical identity. This extends the field of reality as object for subjective activity, and thus makes room for a process of creative activity, including a “creative cycle”, which demystifies creativity and prepares it for theoretical and empirical investigation. However, the method and the fundamental concepts devel- oped have implications beyond the study of creativity in the narrow sense. They imply consequences for psychological domains such as developmen- tal, clinical, and educational psychology.
    [Show full text]
  • Artistic Creativity in Artificial Intelligence
    Artistic Creativity in Artificial Intelligence a dissertation presented by Deniz E. Kurt to The Department of Creative Industries in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the subject of Arts & Culture Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands April 2018 ©2018 – Deniz E. Kurt all rights reserved. Thesis advisor: Dr. Vincent Meelberg Deniz E. Kurt Artistic Creativity in Artificial Intelligence Abstract Computational art is a creative field that indicates to a futuristic idea of artificial intelligence. De- spite the common belief that a machine is unable to create art, current developments and examples in computational art present a new form of art. Reaching to a broad variety of artistic dimensions, artificial intelligence programs are generating poetry, music, visual art, architecture and design. This study introduces artificial intelligence as an artistic phenomenon and analyzes the artifacts that are produced by computer algorithms. Thus, it provides a theoretical framework and a philosophical dis- cussion on the creative abilities of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, it concerns with the entitlement of artiness, by presenting a reflection on the dynamics between the artwork, the art-maker and the art audience. The analysis of computational artworks and the computer programs that generate those artworks show that the function of artificial intelligence is far beyond being merely a tool to create art, it is rather an actor that have an artistic and creative agency. With this study, I suggest an alternative approach in the conceptual definition of art, which can help to explore the possibilities of a new art genre. iii Contents 0 Introduction 1 1 Human Intelligence vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Review of Margaret Boden 'Mind As Machine: a History of Cognitive Science' (2 Vols., Oxford University Press 2006)’, Minds and Machines, 18 (1), 121-25
    Müller, Vincent C. (2008), ‘Review of Margaret Boden 'Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science' (2 vols., Oxford University Press 2006)’, Minds and Machines, 18 (1), 121-25. – http://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-008-9091-9 - http://www.sophia.de - http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4144-4957 Vincent C. Müller Review of Margaret Boden, ‘Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science’ 12.09.2007 Margaret A. Boden, Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, xlvii+1631, cloth $225, ISBN 0-19-924144-9. 1. Mind as Machine is Margaret Boden’s opus magnum. For one thing, it comes in two massive volumes of nearly 1700 pages, in large format and densely printed— the whole must be around one million words. The bibliography alone, modestly entitled “References”, is 130 pages long with over 4000 entries. (One hopes it will be made available online; perhaps together with Chrisley 2000.) But it is not just the opus magnum in simple terms of size, but also a truly crowning achievement of half a century’s career in cognitive science. We must be grateful that someone of Boden’s standing actually got down to write up systematically at least a little part of what she has learned, to pass it on to us. And we must be grateful that she has so much to say. Anyone will profit from the clarity in context that Boden provides. Her impressive learning is evident at every turn, everything is deeply understood and thought about, almost everything important seems to have been read and incorporated, down to very recent and still forthcoming literature—this is not a history of things past but an overall account of the discipline as it stands now.
    [Show full text]