Our mission
The Philosophy of Computing Research Group at ICFO works at the intersection of the philosophy of computer science, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of cognition, and the history and philosophy of artificial intelligence. It integrates perspectives from all of these philosophical subdisciplines.
One of our central aims is to elucidate and make more precise the concepts of “computing” and “computation” that are involved in the various debates in the relevant fields. Within this context, we have special interests in the definitions of natural numbers and ‘standard’ versus non-standard computation as well as in the relation between human and machine-based computation. Insights into these topics are relevant to debates in and about all varieties of artificial intelligence, computer science and the cognitive sciences – to which our members already have made contributions.
Concrete topics investigated by our members include:
- the limits of computation and computability
- models of computation and computational models
- artificial intelligence, cybernetics and computation
- computer simulations and analogue models
- human cognition and machine computation
In practical terms, Paula Quinon and Hajo Greif are elected members of the History and Philosophy of Computing Council (HaPoC), and Hajo Greif also of the executive board of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP), while Paweł Stacewicz has been running the “Cafe Aleph” blog since 2011..
The Philosophy of Computing group is part of the International Centre for Formal Ontology.
If you want to know more about our group, please send us a note.