What an Algorithm Is

Philosophy and Technology 29 (1):35-59 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The algorithm, a building block of computer science, is defined from an intuitive and pragmatic point of view, through a methodological lens of philosophy rather than that of formal computation. The treatment extracts properties of abstraction, control, structure, finiteness, effective mechanism, and imperativity, and intentional aspects of goal and preconditions. The focus on the algorithm as a robust conceptual object obviates issues of correctness and minimality. Neither the articulation of an algorithm nor the dynamic process constitute the algorithm itself. Analysis for implications in computer science and philosophy reveals unexpected results, new questions, and new perspectives on current questions, including the relationship between our informally construed algorithms and Turing machines. Exploration in terms of current computational and philosophical thinking invites further developments.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-01-13

Downloads
566 (#28,721)

6 months
77 (#49,799)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

Mathematical logic.Stephen Cole Kleene - 1967 - Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications.
Informal Rigour and Completeness Proofs.Georg Kreisel - 1967 - In Imre Lakatos (ed.), Problems in the Philosophy of Mathematics. North-Holland. pp. 138--157.
Computing mechanisms.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (4):501-526.
Semiotic Systems, Computers, and the Mind: How Cognition Could Be Computing.William J. Rapaport - 2012 - International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems 2 (1):32-71.
Specification.Raymond Turner - 2011 - Minds and Machines 21 (2):135-152.

View all 14 references / Add more references