Wittgenstein and Turing
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Juliet Floyd
Abstract
A Just-So story, intended as plausible philosophical reconstruction, of the mutual impact of Wittgenstein and Turing upon one another. Recognizably Wittgensteinian features of Turing’s diagonal argumentation and machine-model of human computation in “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” (OCN) and his argumentation in “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (Turing 1950) are drawn out, emphasizing the anti-psychologistic, ordinary language and social aspects of Turing’s conception. These were indebted, according to this story, to exposure to Wittgenstein’s lectures and dictations. Next Wittgenstein’s manuscripts on the foundations of mathematics 1934-1942 are interpreted in light of the impact of Turing’s analysis of logic upon them. Themes will include the emergence of rule-following issues, the notion of Lebensform, a suggestion about a strand in the private language remarks, and anti-psychologism. The payoff is a novel and more adequate characterization, both of Turing’s philosophy of logic and of Wittgenstein’s.
Abstract
A Just-So story, intended as plausible philosophical reconstruction, of the mutual impact of Wittgenstein and Turing upon one another. Recognizably Wittgensteinian features of Turing’s diagonal argumentation and machine-model of human computation in “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” (OCN) and his argumentation in “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (Turing 1950) are drawn out, emphasizing the anti-psychologistic, ordinary language and social aspects of Turing’s conception. These were indebted, according to this story, to exposure to Wittgenstein’s lectures and dictations. Next Wittgenstein’s manuscripts on the foundations of mathematics 1934-1942 are interpreted in light of the impact of Turing’s analysis of logic upon them. Themes will include the emergence of rule-following issues, the notion of Lebensform, a suggestion about a strand in the private language remarks, and anti-psychologism. The payoff is a novel and more adequate characterization, both of Turing’s philosophy of logic and of Wittgenstein’s.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Preface IX
-
Part I: Philosophy of Logic
- Link’s Revenge: A Case Study in Natural Language Mereology 3
- Universal Translatability: An Optimality- Based Justification of (Classical) Logic 37
- Invariance and Necessity 55
- Translations Between Logics: A Survey 71
- On the Relation of Logic to Metalogic 91
- Free Logic and the Quantified Argument Calculus 105
- Dependencies Between Quantifiers Vs. Dependencies Between Variables 117
- Three Types and Traditions of Logic: Syllogistic, Calculus and Predicate Logic 133
- Truth, Paradox, and the Procedural Conception of Fregean Sense 153
- Wittgenstein and Frege on Assertion 169
- Assertions and Their Justification: Demonstration and Self-Evidence 183
- Surprises in Logic: When Dynamic Formality Meets Interactive Compositionality 197
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Part II: Philosophy of Mathematics
- Neologicist Foundations: Inconsistent Abstraction Principles and Part-Whole 215
- What Hilbert and Bernays Meant by “Finitism” 249
- Wittgenstein and Turing 263
- Remarks on Two Papers of Paul Bernays 297
- The Significance of the Curry-Howard Isomorphism 313
- Reductions of Mathematics: Foundation or Horizon? 327
- What Are the Axioms for Numbers and Who Invented Them? 343
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Part III: Wittgenstein
- Following a Rule: Waismann’s Variation 359
- Propositions in Wittgenstein and Ramsey 375
- An Unexpected Feature of Classical Propositional Logic in the Tractatus 385
- Ontology in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: A Topological Approach 397
- Adding 4.0241 to TLP 415
- Understanding Wittgenstein’s Wood Sellers 429
- On the Infinite, In-Potentia: Discovery of the Hidden Revision of Philosophical Investigations and Its Relation to TS 209 Through the Eyes of Wittgensteinian Mathematics 441
- Incomplete Pictures and Specific Forms: Wittgenstein Around 1930 457
- „Man kann die Menschen nicht zum Guten führen“ – Zur Logik des moralischen Urteils bei Wittgenstein und Hegel 473
- Der Status mathematischer und religiöser Sätze bei Wittgenstein 485
- Gutes Sehen 499
- Wittgenstein’s Conjecture 515
- Index of Names 535
- Index of Subjects 539
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Preface IX
-
Part I: Philosophy of Logic
- Link’s Revenge: A Case Study in Natural Language Mereology 3
- Universal Translatability: An Optimality- Based Justification of (Classical) Logic 37
- Invariance and Necessity 55
- Translations Between Logics: A Survey 71
- On the Relation of Logic to Metalogic 91
- Free Logic and the Quantified Argument Calculus 105
- Dependencies Between Quantifiers Vs. Dependencies Between Variables 117
- Three Types and Traditions of Logic: Syllogistic, Calculus and Predicate Logic 133
- Truth, Paradox, and the Procedural Conception of Fregean Sense 153
- Wittgenstein and Frege on Assertion 169
- Assertions and Their Justification: Demonstration and Self-Evidence 183
- Surprises in Logic: When Dynamic Formality Meets Interactive Compositionality 197
-
Part II: Philosophy of Mathematics
- Neologicist Foundations: Inconsistent Abstraction Principles and Part-Whole 215
- What Hilbert and Bernays Meant by “Finitism” 249
- Wittgenstein and Turing 263
- Remarks on Two Papers of Paul Bernays 297
- The Significance of the Curry-Howard Isomorphism 313
- Reductions of Mathematics: Foundation or Horizon? 327
- What Are the Axioms for Numbers and Who Invented Them? 343
-
Part III: Wittgenstein
- Following a Rule: Waismann’s Variation 359
- Propositions in Wittgenstein and Ramsey 375
- An Unexpected Feature of Classical Propositional Logic in the Tractatus 385
- Ontology in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: A Topological Approach 397
- Adding 4.0241 to TLP 415
- Understanding Wittgenstein’s Wood Sellers 429
- On the Infinite, In-Potentia: Discovery of the Hidden Revision of Philosophical Investigations and Its Relation to TS 209 Through the Eyes of Wittgensteinian Mathematics 441
- Incomplete Pictures and Specific Forms: Wittgenstein Around 1930 457
- „Man kann die Menschen nicht zum Guten führen“ – Zur Logik des moralischen Urteils bei Wittgenstein und Hegel 473
- Der Status mathematischer und religiöser Sätze bei Wittgenstein 485
- Gutes Sehen 499
- Wittgenstein’s Conjecture 515
- Index of Names 535
- Index of Subjects 539