2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

O N THE VARIOUS MEANINGS OF “X IS NOT A SCIENCE”
Warren McCulloch states in clear and unequivocal terms the ambition behind the novel use
that he has in mind for the nascent computer technology. He says:
Even Clark Maxwell, who wanted nothing more than to know the relation
between thoughts and the molecular motions of the brain, cut short his query
with the memorable phrase, “But does not the way to it lie through the very
den of the metaphysician, strewn with the bones of former explorers and abhorred
by every man of science?” Let us peacefully answer the first half of
his question “Yes,” the second half “No,” and proceed serenely. Our adventure
is actually a great heresy. We are about to conceive of the knower as a
computing machine. 16
Similar assertions, although less colorful, can be found a few years later in the early texts
that open the history of Artificial Intelligence proper. Herbert Simon is among the more ac-
tively involved in the confrontation with philosophy, and the pages of The Sciences of the
Artificial where he assign to the new science the study of the “whole man fully equipped
with glands and viscera” are well-known. 17 Joëlle Proust has shown that Newell and Si-
mon’s work can easily be read as an updated form of the transcendental inquiry inaugurated
by Kant. As she writes upon explaining the concept of symbolic system they developed,
Ce n’est donc pas la manière dont un sujet parvient à construire ses
propres représentations qui intéresse l’I.A. [an approach that would make AI
homologous to psychology] mais ce sont le contraintes formelles [and
therefore non-empirical, strictu sensu] qui doivent être satisfaites par un
système symbolique physique pour qu’il puisse accomplir des tâches
exigeant de l’intelligence. De même donc que Kant déplaçait l’axe de la
réflexion de la nature humaine vers le conditions de possibilité d’une
16. Warren McCulloch, “Through the Den of the Metaphysician,” Embodiments of Mind (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1989) 143. The article contains the (revised) text of a lecture given at the University of
Virginia in October 1948. Such convictions were typical of the cybernetic movement, in all its phases,
although the degree of emphasis tended to vary from researcher to researcher. One of the most vocal,
Heinz von Foerster, came to reproach Artificial Intelligence (and some cyberneticians) for having repudiated
the original vision that animated the first theoretical uses of computers in favor of a narrowly
defined technical research. See Interview…, 298. One of the few (if not the only) analysis of the philosophical
implications of the early cybernetics is provided by Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Aux origines des sciences
cognitives (Paris: La Découverte, 1994).
17. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969) 65.
141