2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

B ETWEEN ENGINEERING, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY.
philosophy that must be followed and assessed in their respective merit. The second point
is more substantial: these claims seem to stand in sharp conflict with the objections to AI
that have been raised from the scientific field, and in particular by psychologists and cog-
nitive scientists. The crux of Artificial Intelligence’s relationship with philosophy, in other
words, seems to consist in a clash between AI’s self image and its external perception from
within the scientific field. Psychologists object that work in AI is too unrigorous and vague
to be part of science, and it should be considered part of philosophy instead. AI retorts,
somewhat violently, that it has gained a sufficient theoretical distance from philosophy to
be considered a full-fledged scientific discipline. Thus, the confrontation between AI and
philosophy is mediated by the objections moved from the scientific quarters: if these were
found to be justified, then AI would be pulled, perhaps inexorably, toward philosophy, and
its efforts to carve an autonomous theoretical space doomed to failure. To decide the issue,
then, we need to look again at the content of these scientific objections.
First, we may recognize that the dispute is not over what Artificial Intelligence is
about, over its subject matter. In this respect, the self-perception and the outside gaze are
remarkably in agreement. Rather, the dispute concerns AI’s methods —too un-theoretical
and engineering-like—and approach—too broad and philosophical. Furthermore, it is im-
portant to notice that what is contended is not the substance of the methods and approach,
but rather their scientific value. The method and the approach, however, are precisely what
AI takes to be its characteristic points of pride. In other words, the disagreement is remark-
ably not about what AI is about, nor is it about how it goes about its business, but whether
its engineeristic theoretical gaze is a virtue or a liability. AI sees it as its crucial advantage,
while scientists retort it makes not a science of AI.
The first objection targeted AI’s crucial reliance on computer programs, and denied
that they may have any theoretical dignity. Of course no AI practitioner would deny that AI
depends on programs. More importantly, she would contend that it is precisely by using
programs that her discipline can start doing something and turn philosophy’s idle talking
into concrete, testable results. The second and third objections concerned the abstract and
generalizing approach typical of a discipline that focuses on intelligence in general and tar-
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