3. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• Whitehead's philosophy
of education emphasizes
the idea that a good life
is most profitably thought
of as an educated or
civilized life
• As we think, we live.
Thus it is only as we
improve our thoughts
that we improve our lives
4. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• “There is only one
subject matter for
education, and that is
Life in all its
manifestations”
• Whitehead emphasizes
the importance of
remembering that a
“pupil's mind is a
growing organism ... it is
not a box to be ruthlessly
packed with alien ideas”
5. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• Instead, it is the purpose
of education to stimulate
and guide each student's
self-development. It is
not the job of the
educator simply to insert
into his students' minds
little chunks of
knowledge.
6. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• any adequate education
must include a literary
component, a scientific
component and a
technical component
7. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• Literary component -
includes, not just the study
of language, but also the
study of high achievement
in human thought and
writing
• Scientific component -
includes practice in the
observation of natural
phenomena as well as
exposure to the testing of
theories and of the
presumed law-like
connections we find in the
natural world
8. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• Technical component -
focuses primarily on the
“art of utilizing knowledge”,
especially in the production
of goods but also in any
area of so-called
knowledge application
• The good life requires, not
just accomplishment, but
also the stimulus to create,
and participate in, an
improved, more civilized
society.
9. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
• Whitehead sees
education as necessarily
encouraging the
marriage of thought with
action. As he puts it, “No
man of science wants
merely to know. He
acquires knowledge to
appease his passion for
discovery”
10. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)
• a longtime collaborator
of fellow philosopher and
mathematician Alfred
North Whitehead.
Together, they
composed the
massive Principia
Mathematica, a
masterpiece that
established the
interconnection between
logic and mathematics
12. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)
• “Education is the key to
the new world” :
a teacher should
endeavor to produce in his
pupils, if democracy is to
survive, is the kind of
tolerance that springs from
an endeavor to understand
those who are different
from ourselves.
13. Hilary Putnam (born July 31, 1926)
• Putnam put forward a view
about the relation between
mind and brain which came
to be known as
FUNCTIONALISM
14. Hilary Putnam (born July 31, 1926)
• FUNCTIONALISM:
Functionalism is a
materialist position, but unlike
other forms of materialism,
denies that an organism’s
mental states can be simply
identified with its underlying
brain states. Rather, mental
states are states that play a
particular CAUSAL ROLE in the
organism’s life – and can be
realised by many different sorts
of underlying physical states
15. Hilary Putnam (born July 31, 1926)
• FUNCTIONALISM:
So according to
functionalism, an organism can
be in pain (for example) even if
its neurophysiological make-up
is totally different to our own –
even if it is made of silicon.
Pain is simply the state-of-the-
organism that is caused by
certain environmental inputs,
e.g. coming into contact with
fire, and causes the organism
to have certain other mental
states, e.g. fear, and to behave
in certain ways, e.g. wincing.
16. Hilary Putnam (born July 31, 1926)
• FUNCTIONALISM:
Functionalism is a
materialist position, but unlike
other forms of materialism,
denies that an organism’s
mental states can be simply
identified with its underlying
brain states. Rather, mental
states are states that play a
particular CAUSAL ROLE in the
organism’s life – and can be
realised by many different sorts
of underlying physical states
17. Hilary Putnam (born July 31, 1926)
• Internal realism
was the view that,
although the world may
be causally independent of the
human mind, the structure of
the world—its division into
kinds, individuals and
categories—is a function of the
human mind, and hence the
world is
not ontologically independent
18. John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932)
• Searle unswervingly advocates
the thesis of “external” realism
• claim that there is a reality
totally independent of our
representations - words, be-liefs,
perceptions, pictures, maps, etc.
There are objects, features, facts
and states of affairs that are
logically independent of our
representations: even if we and all
our representations ceased to
exist, a large part of what there is
would continue to exist
unaffected.
19. John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932)
• In the Chinese Room
Argument, Searle developed
a provocative argument to
show that artificial intelligence
is indeed artificial
20. Chinese Room Argument
A person who knows nothing of the Chinese
language is sitting alone in a room. In that room are
several boxes containing cards on which Chinese
characters of varying complexity are printed, as well as a
manual that matches strings of Chinese characters with
strings that constitute appropriate responses. On one
side of the room is a slot through which speakers of
Chinese may insert questions or other messages in
Chinese, and on the other is a slot through which the
person in the room may issue replies.
21. Chinese Room Argument
The person in the room, using the manual, acts as
a kind of computer program, transforming one string of
symbols introduced as “input” into another string of
symbols issued as “output.” Searle claims that even if the
person in the room is a good processor of messages, so
that his responses always make perfect sense to
Chinese speakers, he still does not understand the
meanings of the characters he is manipulating. Thus,
contrary to strong AI, real understanding cannot be a
matter of mere symbol manipulation. Like the person in
the room, computers simulate intelligence but do not
exhibit it.
