Essay 08

Essay 08

This essay is due Thursday, 10/25. Instructions are as before.

In a series of passages which are characteristically self-conscious and deliberate, Wittgenstein reflects on the Philosophical Investigations, and on philosophical investigations:

130. Our clear and simple language-games are not preparatory studies for a future regularization of language—as it were first approximations, ignoring friction and air-resistance. The language-games are rather set up as objects of comparison which are meant to throw light on the facts of our language by way not only of similarities, but also of dissimilarities.

131. For we can avoid ineptness or emptiness in our assertions only by presenting the model as what it is, as an object of comparison—as, so to speak, a measuring-rod; not as a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond. (The dogmatism into which we fall so easily in doing philosophy.)

132. We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language: an order with a particular end in view; one out of many possible orders; not the order. To this end we shall constantly be giving prominence to distinctions which our ordinary forms of language easily make us overlook. This may make it look as if we saw it as our task to reform language.

Such a reform for particular practical purposes, an improvement in our terminology designed to prevent misunderstandings in practice, is perfectly possible. But these are not the cases we have to do with. The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.

133. It is not our aim to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways.

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.—Instead, we now demonstrate a method, by examples; and the series of examples can be broken off.—Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem.

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.

A course in philosophy (e.g., "PHIL 3327: American Philosophy", "PHIL 3342: Philosophy of Love and Sex", "PHIL 3345: The Meaning of Life", or "PHIL 4303: Minds and Machines") just is itself a philosophical investigation into one or more philosophical problems, only an investigation limited to 14 weeks. Consider the description of Minds and Machines:

Early projections at the dawn of computing technology that computers would soon match and exceed humans in intelligence are now seen as quaint, if not ridiculous. Despite enormous gains in computing power, genuine artificial intelligence has proven entirely elusive. To be sure, computer scientists have had some modest successes. Yet capturing human-level intelligence in a machine has thus far proven to be an intractable problem. At best, we seem to have achieved insect-level intelligence in some of our more complicated robots. The fact that projections about Artificial Intelligence have proven false begs an important question:

What is it about human intelligence that makes the creation of human-level artificial intelligence so problematic?

This question is especially important in light of the fact that modern neuropsychology assumes the human brain is itself a kind of biological computer. That is, researchers operate on the assumption that we are meat machines. In light of this assumption, we consider some of the most important questions in Philosophy, Psychology, and Computer Science:

  • What is the place of the mental in a physical universe?
  • How does the human brain underwrite the human mind, if it does?
  • Are artificial minds possible, and if so, how?
  • Are computational models of perception, intention, and action useful or deceptive?
  • Is intentionality compatible with mechanism?
  • Is autonomy compatible with mechanism?
  • Is consciousness compatible with mechanism?
  • Is identity compatible with mechanism?
  • Are emotions compatible with mechanism?

It is not our goal in this course to argue that Artificial Intelligence is impossible. Rather, it is our goal to understand what makes human intelligence such an extraordinary and astonishing phenomenon by carefully considering some of the more important skeptical challenges to the possibility of artificial intelligence. Along the way, we learn a great deal about machines, on the one hand, and human minds, on the other.

Topics include:

  • Dualism, Idealism, and Materialism
  • Functionalism and Computational Psychology
  • The Turing Test
  • Computability and the Church/Turing Thesis
  • Searle's Chinese Room Thought Experiment
  • The Frame Problem
  • Representationalism and Connectionism
  • Mechanism and Autonomy
  • Robot Intentionality
  • Personhood and Personal Identity
  • Consciousness

Students sit, if you will, for a many-course meal of philosophical morsels, neatly arranged and presented by their garçon to delight, fascinate, and, hopefully, satisfy.

"Mesdemoiselles et Messieurs! It will be my pleasure to serve you this evening. You may call me 'Dr. Berkich', although 'Berkich' will do as well, and of course 'Mr. Berkich' is sometimes heard, drearily. May I interest you in our first course beginning with the Mind-Body problem, yes?
"Following the Mind-Body problem, we here at the Philosophy Cafe are proud to present a variety of exquisitely prepared positions and arguments to satisfy the most discerning philosophical palette.
"You have your choice of Cartesian Dualism, Epiphenomenalism, Idealism, Type-Physicalism, and Machine Functionalism, all of which our world renowned kitchen staff, under the direction of our esteemed chef, have perfectly prepared with particular attention paid to palatability. May I recommend Machine Functionalism with a side of Turing Machine Computability? It is our chef's favorite this evening, requiring many hours of preparation and only the best of ingredients obtained fresh at market this very day! Et voilà!"

Students sample the offerings, turning their noses up at some, enjoying others and recommending them to fellow diners.

(Sidenote: To be sure, this is not that sort of course. Before you can manage anything to eat, you find yourself dragged into the kitchen and pressed into service to make it yourself from raw ingredients. It's hard, sweaty work, the chef says little between withering, disapproving glares, and the resulting dishes are not always (or ever) crafted to the level of culinary refinement to which you've become accustomed.)

Yet if Wittgenstein is correct, philosophical investigation aims at its own extinction, for absolute clarity "simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear", our confusions torn out root and stem, to be tossed once and for all into the dustbin of 'philosophical problems'.

Thus, a course in philosophy succeeds by Wittgenstein's lights to the extent that it offers us therapies to cleanse us of the confusions we portentously and pretentiously dub "philosophical problems". A course fails to the extent that philosophical problems remain or, horrifically, multiply.

Have your philosophy courses qua philosophical investigation succeeded or failed by Wittgenstein's measure? Given your experience in various philosophy courses, what for you is a philosophical investigation? Does your experience recommend the same measure of the success of a philosophy course as Wittgenstein's, or another? If the former, why pursue it? If the latter, by what measure is a philosophical investigation (or course, as the case may be) to be viewed?