Philosophy Engines: Technology And Reading/writing/thinking Philosophy / quote 4 of 5
The shadow of the machine on philosophy
What account of intentionality, meaning and expressivity will be intuitive to practitioners of philosophy who use these technologies for accessing and analysing multiple electronic texts? What account of mind, self and morality will be intuitive to human readers grasping text content through the intermediary of machine readers? To what extent will the thoughts we can entertain about human and social rationality depend upon the material limitations of programmability? These are some of the questions that the new technologies post to philosophers. Finally then, when philosophers avail themselves of the great potential of e-learning, it is worthwhile also to cast a philosophical eye on the machinery that underlies it.