Does Philosophy Have a Role in Computer Science?

Johannes Climacus asks: "It would seem to me that philosophical works of philosophers such as Aristotle, Leibniz, Frege, Russell, and Tarski could play a central role in a Computer Science curriculum, as they form a mathematical basis of modern CS and Math. Ethicists such as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Mill, and Heidegger might also play a normative role in Computer Ethics and technology in general. However, I haven't seen any philosophical discussion in any of my theoretical computer science courses besides some simple logic. Is it the same elsewhere? How often do philosophical concerns play into Computer Science education as a whole? What role does (or could) philosophy have in Computer Science or Information Technology?"

Comments

Enlightenment?

[shadwwulf]

Ummm... Guys?

I think the kind of enlightenment you get from philosophy is not the kind that is ICCCM compliant.

MTW

No, they belong in a philosophy class.

[twitter]

It would seem to me that philosophical works of philosophers such as Aristotle, Leibniz, Frege, Russell, and Tarski could play a central role in a Computer Science curriculum, as they form a mathematical basis of modern CS and Math.

Some philosophy teacher will surely turn this into a course. I imagine GT, where EVERYTHING is subjugated to engineering needs, could be one of the first if it's not already there. You could make it one of your required electives. Of course, a real philosophy person will rain on all our parades by telling us that this is already a class offering under a different name and those who change the name are pandering.

Now, who the hell are these people? Abandon all hope, ye who enter:

• Aristotle did everything, so there's no end to it. Appropriate.
• Leibniz is most remembered for optimism, i.e., his conclusion that our universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one God could have made." could not possibly have known about non free software and should be excluded for "being out of touch."
• Frege " learned from Bertrand Russell that Russell's paradox could be derived from Basic Law V. Hence, the formal system of Grundgesetze was inconsistent." His underlying system was purchase at a greatly reduced rate after the second world war by one Wm. Gates Esq. and it has been practiced in both law and computer code from Redmond since. Abomination.
• Russell "Russell is generally recognised as one of the founders of analytic philosophy, even of its several branches. ... strove to eliminate what they saw as meaningless and incoherent assertions in philosophy, and they sought clarity and precision in argument by the use of exact language and by breaking down philosophical propositions into their simplest components." This sounds great but it would probably degenerate into a flame war about proper indentation.
• Tarski "proved that a sphere can be cut into a finite number of pieces, and then reassembled into a sphere of larger size, or alternatively it can be reassembled into two spheres whose sizes each equal that of the original one. ... Banach and Tarski intended for this proof as evidence in favor of rejecting the axiom of choice" Thus he founded the modern business science of time management.

Please, God, make it stop.

Re:Everything applies to everything

[Karma Sucks]

Everything may be connected to everything, but I still wish you would use paragraphs.

Re:Ask this guy

[JanneM]

Hmm, I wonder what this "preview" button is for? I guess I'll never know.

Philosophy and Computer Science at opposite ends

[pangur]

I have a bachelors degree in Philosophy. I was going for my Masters when one of our PHD candidates (total 9 years in college combined) had to get a job at the Piggy Wiggly because she had no skills. Then I switched to computer science. I later dropped out of CS and went into professional IT, and haven't looked back.

The thing that interested me most about both studies is that they seemed to be both sides of the same coin. Not because of liberal arts vs. hard science, but in the way they had to deal with reality.

In a nutshell:
Philosophy tries to develop, enumerate, and proof basic concepts of existence. Platonic Forms, the monads, and Descartes dialouges are examples of literally trying to get the basic concepts of reality and use them to build bigger structures. Eventually, you could prove more and more complex ideas based on those basic priniciples, which hopefully corresponded with reality.

So, Philosophy tries to take reality and break it down into its individual elements.

Computer science taught about programming languages, algorithms, and circuit design. From those basic parts, we were to make mini CPUs, applications, and so forth. Then we would learn about Artifical Intelligence, and the issues with that.

Computer Science starts with the basic blocks, and tries to create 'reality' from it.

So, there is some curiosity (to me) in that one of the hardest issues in Computer Science is how to create 'intelligence' from basic building blocks. Then, one of the hardest issues in Philosophy is to derive the basic building blocks out of 'intelligence'.

Re:I never went to college..

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a spotted dog. I named my dog, and taught it how to play fetch. Therefore I programmed my dog, and furthermore, a dog is like a computer. Fido.fetch( "ball" ); //wow, object oriented doggy!

So, I hope you learned all you need to know about scoping, typing, binding, etc. from playing with your dog (whom shares properties from objects, therefore there may be some inheirtence as well).

Re:Ask this guy

[tverbeek]

Hmm, I wonder what this "preview" button is for? I guess I'll never know.

You're presupposing a teleological explanation for the "preview" button. I look at it from an existential perspective: the "preview" button simply is, and it's up to each of us to find some meaning - if any - for it.

:)