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APA Committee on Philosophy and Computers2001 ReportMay, 2002 (Volume 75, Issue 5) Reports of APA Committees Committee on Philosophy and Computers During 2000-2001 the committee sought to investigate and advance the relation between "philosophy and computers" by working closely with the Steering Committee of the Computing and Philosophy conference in order to encourage the development and expansion of CAP. The PAC committee also sponsored special sessions at the Division Meetings of the APA. There are now regular CAP East (CAP@CMU) and CAP West (CAP@OSU) sessions. The URLs for these conferences are caae.phil.cmu.edu/caae/CAP/ and osu.orst.edu/groups/cap/ (CAP at Oregon State has begun to house streaming video archives of selected presentations). Expect to see CAP conferences over the next few years in Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim. And plans are underway to hold a World Congress on Computing and Philosophy in 2005. All this speaks well for continued growth in the convergence of information technologies and philosophical activity. A "CAP Awards" program has been established in order to recognize individual faculty contributions to computing and philosophy. Faculty members can receive these awards by being nominated by their campuses. The nomination needs to be accompanied by a proposal and letters of support from the Department Chair as well as a Dean or Provost. The first CAP Award was given to Professor Michael Byron from Kent State during the August 2001 CAP@CMU (information about CAP Awards can be found on the CAP web-sites). With the recent death of Herb Simon, members of the committees proposed that future US CAP keynote speeches be entitled "The Herbert A. Simon Lecture." Herb was committed to both the pedagogical and theoretical aspects of computing and philosophy. Herb was also a strong supporter of our CAP conferences, and offered two keynote speeches at CAP, the last one being in the summer of 2000. It is only appropriate that we remember him this way. A final CAP matter: At the 2001 August CAP at Carnegie Mellon, formation of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACP) was announced. This independent organization will serve as the umbrella group for current and future CAP conferences. PAC will also seek permission from the APA to establish a Jon Barwise Prize for significant and sustained contributions to Computing and Philosophy. As with Herb Simon, Jon had a life-long commitment to both the pedagogical and theoretical aspects of computing and philosophy. A drive is now underway to acquire funds for an endowment for this Prize. As for PAC sponsored APA Division presentations, in 2000-2001 we emphasized the "computational turn" that is occurring within the fields of Logic, Epistemology, and Ethics. An Eastern Division special session was entitled "New Models for Approaching Reason and Argument." Tom Burke (University of South Carolina) gave a presentation on the philosophical and pedagogical foundations for Barwise and Etchemendy’s logic software ("Language, Proof, and Logic"). Richard Scheines (Carnegie Mellon) described the development and assessment of web-based courseware for causal and statistical reasoning. At the Pacific Division meeting Clark Glymour, in a provocative talk entitled "Automating Normal Science: Rocks to Genes," presented work in applied philosophy of science to demonstrate the idea that causal discoveries can reliably be made by algorithmic procedures. And at the Central Division meeting Charles Ess and Susan Dwyer addressed the "Cultural and Ethical Dimensions of the World Wide Web" and the "Moral Dangers of Cyberporn" respectively. This year we want to welcome James Fetzer (University of Minnesota, Duluth) and Luciano Floridi (Oxford University) to the committee. Both have already provided valuable service and I look forward to working with them and the other members of the committee in the future. Finally we will sorely miss the work of Ron Barnette (Valdosta State University) and Larry Hinman (University of San Diego) as they has been very productive over the years and I want to thank them for the fine work they have done. They will no doubt remain in touch with the committee through their work with CAP and now the International Association for Computing and Philosophy. Robert
Cavalier, Department of Philosophy, Center for the Advancement of Applied
Ethics, 155 Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412/268-7643 ** HomePage: caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/Robert/Cavalier.html;
CAP Conference Home Page: caae.phil.cmu.edu/caae/CAP/ |