Philosophy and Software

The unique tool of philosophy is language (concepts, one might think, but expressed in words: nothing exists but through language).

Software may be seen as the opposite: the production of performative semantics--meaning which needs no interpretation, objective. Software is meant to be run, not talked about.

So, should philosophy be rejected (as it is often in practice)? Quite on the contrary. But what needs to be talked about, is what software does not achieve, what software is not. Forbidding philosophy without providing software, is still in the domain of philosophy. Philosophy without language: degenerate philosophy, oxymoron.

The problem with many software practioners, is that they unduely extrapolate the realm of evidence, as produced by software, onto evidence produced by nothing at all, except by their own prejudices. Lacking any real evidence, i.e. as soon as somebody contests it, one resorts to philosophy. Pragmatism only affects which kind of philosophy.

-- MarcGirod - 11 Dec 2008