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Leibniz's Two Legacies. Their Implications for Knowledge

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Leibniz's Two Legacies. Their Implications for Knowledge Witold Marciszewski holds the chair of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Witold Marciszewski Science at Warsaw University, Poland. Warsaw University, Poland Mcmber ofLcibniz Gescllschaft.Presi­ dentofFoundationforInfOlmatics,Logie and Mathematics, Poland. Editor of the electronic joumal Mathesis Universalis Leibniz'sTw o Legacies. for "Logic andIntelligence, Mechanized Dcduction, Lcibnizian Perspective", as­ Their Implications fo r sociated with LogBank - a database for logic, informatics, etc. Authorofscveral Knowledge Engineering books relevant to the Marciszcwski, W.: Leibniz' two legacies and their implica­ knowledge, and (2) his implicit questioning of the same tions regarding lm owledge engineering. possibility because ofthe role attributed by him to percep­ Know!.Org. 23(1996)No.2, 1'.77-83, 37 refs. tion as characteristic of organic life. Knowledge engineering anticipated by Leibniz in such projects The former makes him closer to Alan Turing as a as ideal language for science reasoning automata, library pioneer of hard AI, the latter - to John von Neumann as organization, etc. owes to him philosophical presuppositions as to the scope of possible automation. The paper deals with an one who acknowledged peculiarities of organisms, seeing ambiguity in his position. His attitude as an engineer implies their enormous advantages over electronic devices. hard AI (as represented by A. Turing) while his metaphysical These views, though opposing each other, have a point insights involve an insuperable physical difference between in common, to wit either makes a stand against Dcscartes' organisms and artificial machines, which is highly relevant to conceptions of mind and knowledge; thus Descartes efficiency ofinformation processing (this physicalism claiming provides us with a remarkable contrastive background to the importofhardware, accords with J. vonNeumann's insights). better perceive Leibniz's two approaches3• The paper's sections: 1. Leibniz VS. Descartes in views on knowledge. 2. On physicalism and anti physicalism in logic. 3. To express Descartes' position in a most concise way, Turing's claim as to the insignificance of hardware. 4. Von let us put it as fo llows: 'the mind does not belong to the Neumann's claim as to the significance of hardware. 5. Why same world to which matter does ' (cp Ryle [1949]). Thus Leibniz would not have accepted logical physicalism. 6. Why Descartes has created the paradigm of a physics-inde­ Leibniz would have accepted logical physicalism. (Author) pendent theory of mind; the article "the" is to hint at the enormous impact of that theory, to the extent of its becoming a commonsense approach (extremities of be� 1. Leibniz vs Descartes in Views on Knowledge haviouris111 may be partly explained as a revolutionary Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), who antici­ reaction to that paradigm). Leibniz's point results from pated so enormous areas of modern knowledge, is also a denying that denial, so that it reads 'the mind 'does' forerunner of what we nowadays call 'knowledge engi­ belong' (etc). Thus Leibniz paves the way to what nowa­ neering' - by his creations of library systems and his days starts to be called 'physics of mind' (cp Penrose proj ects of collective research, the latter fruitfully mate­ [1988]). rialized with the etablishing of learned societies and Now, there arehvo theoreti cally possible concretisations ministries of science according to some of his projectsl. of this general point: either (1) one reduces thought to We need this term to cover the issues of both correct matter (as, eg, in hard AI), or (2) one acknowledges their 'producing' and efficient 'organizing and managing ' distinctness and interaction (as, eg, Popper and Eccles human knowledge. The former is traditionally handled by [1997]; as to hard and weak AI, cp Gams [1995]). Leibniz epistemology and logic, including methodology of sci­ in his philosophy never endorsed (1) but in his practical ences, the latter - by a cluster of new specialized knowledge-engineering projects he came close to it, while disciplines. However, these two fields are not unrelated to in the main stream of his philosophy it was point (2) each other. To use an example to suggest the argument, which he firmly held. In this sense we can speak of let it be recalled that the procedures offonnalizing proofs, Leibniz's two legacies. His approaching point (1) was though belonging to the sphere of mathematical produc­ connected with the idea of his 'ars combinatoria' as a tion (and so handled by mathematical logic ) turned out to universal method ofproblem solving which was combina­ be an indispensable tool for databases, in particular tory and finitist, hence feasible for mechanical devices. mathematical ones, which belong to the domain ofknow 1- In the sequel, the fairly 'materialistic' point (as that of edge organization and managementz. strong AI) is designated by the term 'anti-physicalism' Let us start from a comparison of Leibniz views to and the opposite one by 'physicalism'; this terminology those of Rene Descartes (1596-1650). Why should we may seem rather odd, but is justifiedas fo llows. The view start in this way? The answer is as fo llows. There are two that physical devices (mechanical, electronic, etc) in views of Leibniz to be discussed in this essay, which principle (technical complications notwithstanding) can oppose each other, namely (1) his explicit belief in the do the same job as organisms and minds do, involves the possibility of automation of the processes of producing irrelevance of a physical kind of hardware: it is not matter Know!. Org. 23(1996)No.2 77 Witold Marciszewski: Leibniz's Two Legacies https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-1996-2-77 Generiert durch IP '170.106.35.234', am 27.09.2021, 09:57:11. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. · but software what matters. Thus the stress put on the 2. On Physicalism and Alltiphysicalism ill Logic import of what constitutes a physical component deserves Physicalism holds human thoughts and acts to be to be denoted as 'physicalism', while its opposite is called determined by physical laws (Webster [1971]). Logical 'antiphysicalism' . Physicalism, LP for short, holds reasoning processes to be Before we enter into the discusion of both approaches, determined by laws deriving from physical properties of it is in order to hint at their implications for knowledge the brain, hence from some hardware properties. engineering. Knowledge is produced by intelligence, In the heroic times of logical empiricism people used hence a step is needed towards a theory of intelligence as to employ the term 'physicalism' in a different sense; that data-processing faculty. Let us assume that in producing stmy, though, seems to be half-forgotten, so one can give knowledge three kinds of data processing are involved this word a new meaning, as suggested in Marciszewski and three skills respectively, to wit 'reasoning' (includ­ and Murawski [1995]. An alternativesuggestion is due to ing computing), 'abstraction ', and 'ordering'. Reason­ Schnelle [1988) who uses the phrase 'naturalization of ing with computing is the unique member of this triad logic'. However, it seems desirable to have a term related which so far, to some extent, has been successfully to the phrase 'physics of thought' (see below). Moreover, mechanized, lhat is, made feasible for machines, esp. the use of the adjective 'natural' in contexts like 'natural electronic ones; hence it plays a special role in the present logic' has been already established for what Gentzen discussion (cp Marciszewski and Murawski [1995]). called 'das natiirliche Schliessen '. As to reasoning, therefore, we can already sec its role It was the famous physicist Roger Penrose [1988) who in knowledge organization and engineering, for instance was bold enough to claim inquiries into ' the mathematics that of inferential mechanism in expert systems and olldphysics of thought'. His ideas can be combined in a databases. As for the other skills, the question is not fertile way with those ofJohn von Neumann [1958) which settled yet in an empirical way, hence a support should be prove crucial fo r the story in question. expected from philosophy. Abstraction is a subject-mat­ However, when associating physics with logic and a ter of AI research but at a most primitive stage, namely theory of mind, one has to regard the strong hold over that of pattern recognition (from that to, eg, abstracting philosophers got by the Cartesian paradigm concerning transfinite cardinals is a rather long way). Should we, for the mind-matter relations. With respect to that paradigm, the future, envisage its fu ll mastering by electronic de­ any phrase like "the physics of thought" is even worse vices, as antiphysicalism does claim? If so, then it is worth than a philosophical heresy; it is felt as a category­ while to devote time and money to such a promising mistake, like saying that numbers happen to be warm, or research. Ifnot, then it is wiser to spare resources for more that some thoughts are yellow. The term 'categ01Y­ feasible and payable AI projects. mistake ' is due to Ryle [1949]. In the same book the The same dilemma appears with regard to the skill of Cartesian doctrine is rendered as fo llows. "Human bodies ordering which includes creation of structures, as math­ [ ...) are subject to the mechanical laws which govern all ematical, syntactic, musical, technical, political ones, etc other bodies in space. [ ... J Minds are not in space, nor are (if we endorse such interpretation of Georg Cantor's well­ their operations subject to mechanical laws." (p. l1). ordering theorem)4. When the mechanical laws (like those stated by Newton) The ordering issue turns to be even more involved than are identified with the totality of physical laws, the mind­ the abstraction issue, since any non-trivial ordering pre­ body problem is doomed to be "solved" either in the supposes acts of assessing certain values.
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