Henri Stephanou – författare
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2 produkter
2 produkter
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
2 013 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
The notion of problem solving has become central to science education and the cognitive sciences, but it is still peripheral to many philosophies of knowledge and science. In fact, the term only became popular in the course of the twentieth century, as humanity’s ability to solve theoretical and practical problems grew at a seemingly exponential rate. This book questions both the nature of problem solving and its effectiveness in transforming our human practices. We argue that this is linked to the idea that some of our enquiries can be summarized in systematic procedures. Examples are the proof of a theorem within an axiomatic theory, a production line within an industrial factory, or an administrative procedure within a bureaucratic system. Although such a form has been common in mathematics since antiquity, it was only in modern times that the possibility of being systematic in the natural sciences and technical disciplines was discovered. The emergence of the modern concepts of system and machine was key to this expansion and to the scientific, industrial and digital revolutions. Problem solving thus appears as the fundamental form of the modern concept of knowledge.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2026
2 269 kr
Kommande
The effectiveness of computers has fascinated many philosophers, sometimes leading them to bold hypotheses such as the computational theory of mind or even pan-computationalism. Stephanou takes a different approach, starting with the observation that computers are so versatile precisely because they are incomplete machines that need to be programmed in order to perform the tasks assigned to them. He examines programming from the perspective of the human sciences and shows how difficult it is to define. Understanding programming requires analyzing it as a very particular way of solving problems, in which machines are inserted into situations that have been systematically described. The investigation therefore seeks to shed light on the nature of systematic problem solving and its close relationship with the concept of machine. The books offers an entirely new account of computation and of machines in general, one that discards the usual concepts of information and computation in its explanation and grounds it in a novel theory of human inquiry.