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Philosophy and Computer Science

Reflections on the Program Verification Debate

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Part of the book series: Studies in Cognitive Systems ((COGS,volume 25))

Abstract

In the September 1988 issue of Communcations of the ACM, the primary publication of the Association for Computing Machinery, an article appeared in which I advanced an appraisal of the scope and limits of formal methods to guarantee the reliability of computer system performance. Although intended as a philosophical critique, the response thereby generated was not altogether “philosophical”. The debate has now moved beyond CACM to Notices of the AMS, Minds and Machines, and other journals and books and shows no signs of abating. The APA Committee on Philosophy and Computers has asked me to discuss my experiences relating philosophy and computer science. I suggest that philosophical distinctions not only make a difference to understanding this domain but that their theoretical adequacy is also thereby tested.

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© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Fetzer, J.H. (2001). Philosophy and Computer Science. In: Computers and Cognition: Why Minds are not Machines. Studies in Cognitive Systems, vol 25. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0973-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0973-7_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-0243-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0973-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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