REVIEW OF
THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION IN PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY,
SCIENCE AND MODELS OF MIND.
AARON SLOMAN.
Humanities Press, 1978. Pp. xii, 304
[Now out of print.
Slightly revised version, with additional notes added after 2001,
freely available online at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/crp/]

The central theme of Aaron Sloman's book is that developments in computer
science and the art of programming "can change our thinking about ourselves:
giving us new models, metaphors and other thinking tools to aid our efforts to
fathom the mysteries of the human mind-and heart" (p. x). Thus Sloman sets out
to "re-interpret some age-old philosophical problems, in the light of
developments in computing" (p. 5). To make his case for the revolutionary
potential of computing ideas in philosophy, Sloman offers several extended
examples of the ways in which computational concepts and models can clarify
philosophical issues and enable us to ask deeper questions. He also illustrates
the way in which a philosophical project can be recast to make it continuous
with ongoing research in artificial intelligence (AI). Sloman does not pretend
to offer completed accounts or theories. All of his proposals are avowedly
tentative, fragmentary, and oversimplified. But this is no defect. What Sloman
is proposing is an ongoing exploration of the fruits that may emerge from the
hybridization of philosophy and AI. The embryonic results of this
cross-fertilization are often exciting; Sloman makes a plausible case for a rich
harvest ahead.

The book is notable for its abundance of intriguing asides on the possible
implications of AI models for education, psychotherapy, social policy, and the
arts of communication. Though these asides are sometimes a bit wild, they are
often thought provoking and insightful. On the darker side, Sloman is also prone
to gratuitous nastiness, unsubstantiated allegations, and simplistic "solutions"
to subtle and difficult problems. Thus, for example, he rails against "academic
colleagues" (unnamed) who are convinced by "fine prose, impressive looking
diagrams or jargon" (p. 13). He warns us that "most psychologists never even
think of the important questions, and those who do usually lack the techniques
of conceptual analysis required for tackling them" (p. 37). No wonder, then,
that "so much of philosophy, psychology, and social science is vapid, or simply
false" (p. 15). But fear not. In setting out the questions that have exercised
philosophers, Sloman will "ignore the many pseudo-questions posed by incompetent
philosophers who cannot tell the difference between profundity and obscurity"
(p. 65).

In that latter category, I must surmise, are those benighted souls who
puzzle over the questions of personal identity and survival after death.
The issue can be dealt with definitively in a single paragraph.

    The computational metaphor, paradoxically, provides support for a claim
    that human decisions are not physically or physiologically determined,
    since, as explained above, if the mind is a computational process using
    the brain as a computer then it follows that the brain does not
    constrain the range of mental processes, any more than a computer
    constrains the set of algorithms that can run on it. Moreover, since the
    state of a computation can be frozen, and stored in some non-material
    medium such as a radio signal transmitted to a distant planet, and then
    restarted on a different computer, we see that the hitherto
    non-scientific hypothesis that people can survive bodily death, and be
    resurrected later on, acquires a new lease of life. [ 1]

The refutation of reductionism (p. 9) is only a few sentences longer.

Sloman's cantankerousness is most pronounced in the first three chapters, where
his principal concern is to set out his account of the nature and aims of
science. That account is, by far, the weakest part of the book. The unhappy
combination of abrasive tone and dubious substance may lead many readers to
leave the remainder of the book unread. That would be a pity. For despite its
faults, there is much here that is valuable and important. The chapters on
conceptual analysis, intelligent mechanisms, analogical reasoning, arithmetic
knowledge, and perception are each useful contributions to the literature. Taken
together these chapters constitute an impressive defense of Sloman's central
thesis: the ideas and techniques developed in AI provide powerful new tools for
tackling philosophical problems. In the paragraphs that follow I will elaborate
a bit on this theme, then sketch my misgivings about Sloman's account of
science.

In Chapter Four, "What Is a Conceptual Analysis?" Sloman endorses the orthodox
Oxbridge line on the nature and importance of conceptual analysis.

    We have a rich and subtle collection of concepts for talking about
    mental states and processes and social interactions.... These have
    evolved over thousands of years, and they are learnt and tested by
    individuals in the course of putting them into practical use.... All
    concepts are theory-laden, and the same is true of these concepts. In
    using them we are unwittingly making use of elaborate theories about
    language, mind and society. The concepts could not be used so
    successfully in intricate interpersonal processes if they were not based
    on substantially true theories. So by analyzing the concepts, we may
    hope to learn a great deal about the human mind and about our own
    society. [84-85]

What is unique, and delightful, in Sloman's chapter is that he proceeds to give
a step by step account of how to embark on a conceptual analysis -- a
how-to-do-it guide compiled with a programmer's eye to detail. We start out by
collecting varied instances and noninstances of the concept in question.
Dictionaries and Roget's Thesaurus are then consulted for tentative definitions
and for lists of related words and phrases. This is followed by a variety of
probes designed to illuminate features of the concept being explored or the
commonsense theory in which it functions: "Ask what the role of the concept is
in our culture (p. 91).... Ask what sort of things can be explained by instances
of the concept (p. 91).... Often some question about the analysis of a concept
can be investigated by telling elaborate stories about imaginary situations" (p.
95). For the student, or the newcomer to the art, Sloman's manual is an
invaluable guide. And even the practiced hand is bound to find useful hints
here. The least familiar suggestion in Sloman's recipe for conceptual analysis
is the one he saves for last.

    Try to test your theories by expressing them in some sort of computer
    program or at least in a sketch for a design of a working program....
    Test your analysis by designing a program whose behavior is intended to
    instantiate the concept, then see whether the actual behavior is aptly
    described using the concepts in question. You will usually find that
    you have failed to capture some of the richness of the concept.... The
    methods of A. I. provide a useful extension to previous techniques of
    conceptual analysis, by exposing unnoticed gaps in a theory and by
    permitting thorough and rapid testing of very complex analyses. [97]

In Chapter Six, "Sketch of an Intelligent Mechanism," Sloman takes up his own
suggestion. He sketches the design of a program aimed at simulating
intelligence, "purposiveness, flexibility, and creativity" (p. 116). What,
Sloman asks, would a computer-driven robot have to do for us comfortably to
describe it as intelligent, flexible, creative, etc.? And what sort of program
could possibly generate such activity? The answers, needless to say, are
exceptionally complex. To count as intelligent and purposeful a robot must be
capable of doing many different sorts of things. It must form plans and
subplans; it must learn from experience how to produce better plans; it must
have a reasonable store of information about itself and its environment; it must
monitor its environment and update its information store efficiently; it must
decide quickly among varying courses of action, often on the basis of incomplete
information, etc. What is more, all of these various capacities must integrate
properly with each other. Because of the richness and complexity of the
intuitive theory in which our concepts are embedded, it is almost unavoidable
that a detailed account of our commonsense theory be cast as a computer program,
since programming languages provide the only available formalism for
representing complex interacting processes. Sloman's sketch of an intelligent
mechanism can be viewed with equal justice as an unusually detailed effort at
conceptual analysis, or as a rather sketchy outline for an ambitious AI research
project. The ambiguity is a persuasive argument for Sloman's contention that the
philosopher's project and the AI programmer's project are continuous with each
other.

In the chapter on "Perception as a Computational Process," Sloman sets out to
recast in computational terms the Kantian claim that perception presupposes
prior knowledge and abilities. The project described is billed as an "attempt to
design a machine which can see" (p. 217). The idea is to program a computer to
recognize various objects or patterns scanned by a TV camera (or presented in
some other preceded, but essentially equivalent way). Humans are remarkably good
at recognizing shapes, letters, and objects even when the visual input is
ambiguous, unclear, distorted, or staggeringly complex. And simulating the human
-achievement turns out to be one of the more difficult tasks tackled by the
artificial intelligencia. The most successful of currently available programs
take an essentially Kantian view of the project. "The program has to work up the
raw material by comparing representations, combining them, separating them,
classifying them, describing their relationships, and so on. What Kant failed to
do was describe such processes in detail" (p. 230). It is Sloman's contention
that the best way to elaborate on the workings of Kantian schemata is to
construct programs capable of simulating human perceptual capacities. The brief
sketch he gives of his own POPEYE project is enough to make it plausible that AI
offers a promising new technique for exploring the ways in which preexisting
knowledge, theories, and concepts interact in the process of perception.

One of the lessons to emerge from work on computer vision is how very complex
perception is, and how little of the complexity is introspectively available. It
turns out "that very complex computational processes are required for what
appeared previously to be very simple abilities, like seeing a block, or even
seeing a straight line" (pp. 219-20). The case for complex cognitive processes
underlying phenomenologically simple perception is, i think, quite undeniable.
What is more dubious is Sloman's contention that unconscious cognitive processes
are "essentially similar in character to intellectual processes of which we are
sometimes conscious" (p. 224). It is probably true that much early work in AI
began with a bias in favor of postulating unconscious processes modeled on
rational conscious processes. But surely there is no reason a priori to assume
that all unconscious cognitive processes are "essentially similar in character"
to familiar conscious processes.[1]

---------------------------------

[1] For an elaboration on this theme, cf. my "Between Chomskian Rationalism and
Popperian Empiricism," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 30, 4.

---------------------------------

Let me turn, now, to Sloman's account of the aims and methods of science, which
occupies the bulk of Chapters Two and Three. It is a bit anomalous that a
discussion of scientific methodology should occupy so prominent a place in a
volume whose main focus is elsewhere. Sloman is obviously aware of the anomaly,
but makes little effort to explain it away. It is just that "the issues are
generally misunderstood, and I felt something needed to be done about that" (p.
xi). But I think a bit of reading between the lines reveals a more compelling
motive. AI, after all, is a puzzling discipline. Unlike an empirical science, it
does not seem to aim at explaining the workings of some part of nature.
Consider, for example, those paradigms of AI virtuosity, the chess playing
computer programs. It is possible to inquire into how people actually go about
playing chess; how they formulate strategies, select among them, recognize
impending attacks, etc. The answers, no doubt, would involve cognitive
mechanisms of which the players are at best dimly aware. And there would be
different answers for different players with different levels of skill. But none
of this story need be of much interest to the AI researcher whose goal is to
produce a winning program. The strategies of chess masters may, of course,
provide the AI researcher with some useful ideas. But he is free to adopt them
or pass them up. It is not the point of an AI chess program to explain how
people play chess. If, however, AI is not the empirical study of human cognitive
processes, what is it?

A number of writers have noted that AI is not concerned with how people
accomplish a task, but rather with the question of how it is possible for any
physical mechanism to execute some task requiring intelligence. It is surely of
considerable philosophical importance to show that a task or activity hitherto
accomplished only by creatures with minds can be accomplished also by artifacts,
physical through and through. And of course, it may be of some technological
importance to build machines which can recognize patterns, play chess,
transcribe the spoken word, etc. Should we conclude, then, that AI is not a
science at all, but rather a curious hybrid of philosophy and technology?

Sloman's discussion of science is, I think, largely motivated by his wish to
avoid such a conclusion and to argue instead that AI falls squarely within the
realm of science. His strategy is a heroic one. Rather than show that AI really
does share what are generally taken to be the aims and methods of empirical
science, he maintains that empirical science, contrary to common misconception,
shares the aims and methods of AI. According to Sloman, a principal aim of
science is to extend "knowledge of what sort of things are possible and
impossible in the world, and how or why they are . . . " (p. 24). One of the
subgoals into which this broad aim is divided is the "constructing [of] theories
to explain known possibilities" (p. 27, emphasis his). A theory "of the
constituents of atoms" is offered as an example of such a theory explaining
possibilities. Generative grammars are a second example. And "artificial
intelligence models provide a major new species of explanations of
possibilities" (p. 27). However, Sloman does not pause to subject his notion of
possibility to the sort of conceptual analysis he advocates elsewhere. This is
unfortunate since it seems that Sloman is using the term 'possibility' in a
bewildering variety of senses; what is worse, he often uses the term in contexts
where it is hard to believe it means anything at all. He tells us that " 'pure'
science first discovers instances of possibilities then creates explanations of
those possibilities" (p. 32). He then goes on to list examples. But in many of
the examples the term 'possibility' seems to be idling-doing no work at all.
Consider:

    Newton's gravitational theory explained how it was possible for the moon
    to produce tides on earth. His theory of the relation between force and
    acceleration explained how it was possible for water to remain in a
    bucket swung overhead. [46]

Now I should have thought that Newton's gravitational theory explained how the
moon actually does produce tides on earth, and that his theory of the relation
between force and acceleration explained why water remained in a bucket swung
overhead. If, as I suspect, Sloman intends his claims to be equivalent to these,
then the talk about possibilities is quite empty. If he does not intend the two
to be taken as equivalent, then explaining how it is possible for the moon to
produce tides on earth must be something different from explaining how the moon
actually does produce tides on earth. But, though I can conjure a variety of
nonvacuous readings for 'explaining how it is possible for the moon to produce
tides on earth', none of them make it at all plausible that Newton's theory
explained any such thing. Here are some of Sloman's other examples:

    The kinetic theory of heat explained, among other things, how it was
    possible for heating to produce expansion, and how heat energy and
    mechanical energy could be interconvertible. [46]

    The theory of genes explained how it was possible for offspring to
    inherit some but not all of the characteristics of each parent, and for
    different siblings to inherit different combinations. [46]

In these cases too, the only reading on which the claims are plausible is one
that takes the modal locutions as idiosyncratic paraphrases of more familiar
indicatives: the kinetic theory of heat explained why heating produces
expansion, and the theory of genes explained why offspring inherit some but not
all of the characteristics of each parent. I conclude that Sloman's attempt to
show that natural science aims at explaining possibilities, and thus that AI is
of a piece with the rest of natural science, does not succeed. Whatever problems
there are about the status of AI and its relations to other disciplines are
problems that remain to be solved.

Let me add a final complaint. Sloman's book must surely mark a low
point in the book manufacturer's art. The right margins are not justified,
and the book abounds with misprints. The typeface frequently changes
to smaller print, and occasionally to boldface, for no evident reason.
Emphasis is sometimes indicated by italics, sometimes by boldface,
and at least once by underlining.

All of this grousing should not be misconstrued, however. Despite its
faults of form and content, Sloman's book is a useful and important one.
The vision he offers of a merger between philosophy and AI is exciting,
and I would predict that a growing number of philosophers will follow
the path Sloman has helped to forge.

STEPHEN P. STICH

I accept all of the criticisms of the style of the book, but have a partial
response to the comments about explanations of possibility, here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/explaining-possibility.html