Essay20267 min read
Philosophy & Computational Thinking
On the quiet correspondence between philosophical inquiry and the discipline of writing programs that reason.
Philosophy and computation share a quiet kinship. Both insist on precision about what a thing is, what it does, and what follows from it. Both are uncomfortable with ambiguity that has not been earned.
When we write a program, we are forced to commit. Vague intentions become typed signatures; hand-waving becomes a control-flow graph. There is no rhetorical retreat. The compiler is an unforgiving but honest critic.
I think this is why so many of the early computer scientists came to the field through logic and philosophy of language. The questions are not entirely different — they have only changed costumes.