Western philosophy
Name	Hubert Lederer Dreyfus
Birth	October 15, 1929 (1929-10-15) (age 78)
School/tradition	Existentialism
Main interests	Phenomenology, Existentialism, Psychology of Literature and Psychology
Notable ideas	Critique of Standard AI
Influenced by	Martin Heidegger · Maurice Merleau-Ponty · Ludwig Wittgenstein · Søren Kierkegaard · Friedrich Nietzsche · Homer · Michel Foucault · Herman Melville ·

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (born October 15, 1929 in Terre Haute, Indiana to Stanley S. and Irene Lederer Dreyfus), is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests include phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of both psychology and literature, and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence. His younger brother, Dr. Stuart Dreyfus, earned a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and is a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at the University of California, Berkeley. If you hold the copyright to an image (e. ... is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... AI redirects here. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (IPA ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Maurice Merleau-Ponty (March 14, 1908 – May 4, 1961) was a French phenomenologist philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl. ... Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria – April 29, 1951 in Cambridge, England) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking ideas to philosophy, primarily in the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ... Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (IPA: , but usually Anglicized as ;  ) 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philologist and philosopher. ... For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Michel Foucault (pronounced ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. ... is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Terre Haute (pronounced ) is a city in Vigo County, Indiana near the states western border with Illinois. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them. ... Psychological science redirects here. ... For other uses, see Literature (disambiguation). ... AI redirects here. ... Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ...

Background

Earning three degrees from Harvard University (B.A in 1951, M.A in 1952, and Ph.D. in 1964), Dreyfus is considered a leading interpreter of the work of Edmund Husserl, Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and especially Martin Heidegger. He is the author of Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's "Being and Time," Division 1, which some consider the authoritative text on Heidegger's most significant contribution to philosophy. He also co-authored Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, translated Merleau-Ponty's Sense and Non-Sense, and authored the controversial 1972 book What Computers Can't Do, revised first in 1979, and then again in 1992 with a new introduction as What Computers Still Can't Do. While spending most of his teaching career at Berkeley, Professor Dreyfus also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (from 1960 to 1968) and at the University of Frankfurt and Hamilton College. His philosophical work has influenced Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, John Searle, and his former student John Haugeland, among others. His critical comments on the existential phenomenology and subsequent dialectical philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre has played a significant role in the demise of Sartre's influence on modern thought. Harvard redirects here. ... Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (IPA: ; April 8, 1859 – April 26, 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology. ... Michel Foucault (pronounced ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Maurice Merleau-Ponty (March 14, 1908 – May 4, 1961) was a French phenomenologist philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (IPA ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Book cover of the 1979 paperback edition What Computers Cant Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 0-06-090613-8) is a controversial work on artificial intelligence, authored by Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... Book cover of the 1979 paperback edition What Computers Cant Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 0-06-090613-8) is a controversial work on artificial intelligence, authored by Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... “MIT” redirects here. ... University of Frankfurt may refer to two (or three) German universities: the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) in Frankfurt am Main the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)) in Frankfurt (Oder), or its historical predecessor which existed... For other colleges with the same name, see Hamilton College (disambiguation). ... Richard McKay Rorty (born October 4, 1931 in New York City, New York; died June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. ... Charles Taylor may refer to: // Charles Taylor (Liberia) (born 1948), a former president of Liberia, accused war criminal, and Bentley College graduate Charles Taylor (Texas) (1805–1865), signer of Texas Declaration of Independence [1] Charles John Taylor, New Zealand politician of the 1850s Charles Taylor (UK politician) (1910–1989), British... John Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932 in Denver, Colorado) is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities, and on practical reason. ... John Haugeland (born in 1945), is a philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ...

Dreyfus taught philosophy at Brandeis University from 1957 to 1959. In 1964, while teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960-1968), Dreyfus published Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence, an attack on the work of Allen Newell and Herbert Simon, two of the leading researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Dreyfus not only questioned the results they had so far obtained, but he also criticized their basic presupposition (that intelligence consists of the manipulation of physical symbols according to formal rules), and argued that the AI research program was doomed to failure. In 1965, he spent time at the Rand Corporation, whilst work on artificial intelligence was in progress there. Brandeis University is a private university located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. ... “MIT” redirects here. ... Allen Newell (March 19, 1927 - July 19, 1992) was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie-Mellon’s School of Computer Science. ... Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, and philosophy of science and a professor, most notably, at Carnegie Mellon University. ... AI redirects here. ... Alternate meanings: See RAND (disambiguation) The RAND Corporation is an American think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. ...

In addition to criticizing artificial intelligence, Dreyfus is well known for making the work of continental philosophers, especially Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Michel Foucault, intelligible to analytically trained philosophers.

Dreyfus's criticism of AI

Dreyfus's critique of artificial intelligence (AI) concerns what he considers to be the four primary assumptions of AI research. The first two assumptions he criticizes are what he calls the "biological" and "psychological" assumptions. The biological assumption is that the brain is analogous to computer hardware and the mind is analogous to computer software. The psychological assumption is that the mind works by performing discrete computations (in the form of algorithmic rules) on discrete representations or symbols. AI redirects here. ... This article is about the machine. ... For other uses, see Hardware (disambiguation). ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Flowcharts are often used to represent algorithms. ... In cognitive psychology a representation is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality. ... A symbol or (in many senses) token is a representation of something — an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. ...

Dreyfus claims that the plausibility of the psychological assumption rests on two others: the epistemological and ontological assumptions. The epistemological assumption is that all activity (either by animate or inanimate objects) can be formalised (mathematically) in the form of predictive rules or laws. The ontological assumption is that reality consists entirely of a set of mutually independent, atomic (indivisible) facts. It's because of the epistemological assumption that workers in the field argue that intelligence is the same as formal rule-following, and it's because of the ontological one that they argue that human knowledge consists entirely of internal representations of reality. Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) According to Plato, knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. ... This article is about ontology in philosophy. ... Intelligence is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. ...

On the basis of these two assumptions, workers in the field claim that cognition is the manipulation of internal symbols by internal rules, and that, therefore, human behaviour is, to a large extent, context free (see contextualism). Therefore a truly scientific psychology is possible, which will detail the 'internal' rules of the human mind, in the same way the laws of physics detail the 'external' laws of the physical world. But it is this key assumption that Dreyfus denies. In other words, he argues that we cannot now (and never will) be able to understand our own behavior in the same way as we understand objects in, for example, physics or chemistry: that is, by considering ourselves as things whose behaviour can be predicted via 'objective', context free scientific laws. According to Dreyfus, a context free psychology is a contradiction in terms. Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In philosophy, contextualism describes a collection of views in the philosophy of language which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance or expression can only be understood within that context. ... For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... Psychological science redirects here. ... Psychological science redirects here. ...

Dreyfus's arguments against this position are taken from the phenomenological and hermeneutical tradition (especially the work of Martin Heidegger). Heidegger argued that, contrary to the cognitivist views on which AI is based, our being is in fact highly context bound, which is why the two context-free assumptions are false. Dreyfus doesn't deny that we can choose to see human (or any) activity as being 'law governed', in the same way that we can choose to see reality as consisting of indivisible atomic facts...if we wish. But it is a huge leap from that to state that because we want to or can see things in this way that it is therefore an objective fact that they are the case. In fact, Dreyfus argues that they are not (necessarily) the case, and that, therefore, any research program that assumes they are will quickly run into profound theoretical and practical problems. Therefore the current efforts of workers in the field are doomed to failure. Use of the word phenomenology in modern science is described in the separate article phenomenology (science). ... Hermeneutics (Hermeneutic means interpretive), is a branch of philosophy concerned with human understanding and the interpretation of texts. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (IPA ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... The word cognitivism is used in several ways: In ethics, cognitivism is the philosophical view that ethical sentences express propositions, and hence are capable of being true or false. ...

Given that Dreyfus has a reputation as a Luddite in some quarters, it's important to emphasise that he doesn't believe that AI is fundamentally impossible; only that the current research programme is fatally flawed. Instead he argues that to get a device (or devices) with human-like intelligence would require them to have a human-like being in the world, which would require them to have bodies more or less like ours, and social acculturation (i.e. a society) more or less like ours. (This view is shared by psychologists in the embodied psychology (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) and distributed cognition traditions. His opinions are similar to those of robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks as well as researchers in the field of artificial life.) Embodied psychology is a school of psychology which stresses embodiment. ... History Distributed cognition is a school of psychology developed in the 1990s by Edwin Hutchins. ... The Shadow robot hand system holding a lightbulb. ... Rodney Allen Brooks (b. ... This article is about a field of research. ...

Daniel Crevier writes: "time has proven the accuracy and perceptiveness of some of Dreyfus's comments. Had he formulated them less aggressively, constructive actions they suggested might have been taken much earlier."^[1] Daniel Crevier (born 1947) is a Canadian entrepreneur and artificial intelligence and image processing researcher. ...

Webcasting Philosophy

When UC Berkeley and Apple began making a selected number of lecture classes freely available to the public as podcasts beginning around 2006, a recording of Dreyfus teaching a course called "Man, God, and Society in Western Literature - From Gods to God and Back" rose to 58th most popular webcast on iTunes.[1] These webcasts have attracted the attention of many, including non-academics, to Dreyfus and his subject area.

Achievements

Erasmus University awarded Dreyfus an honorary doctorate "for his brilliant and highly influential work in the field of artificial intelligence, and for his equally outstanding contributions to the analysis and interpretation of twentieth century continental philosophy". Erasmus University Rotterdam is a university in the Netherlands, located in Rotterdam. ...

Professor Dreyfus published Samuel Todes's Body and World in 2001.

Dreyfus also provided the inspiration for the character Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (aka. The Professor) of the television cartoon series Futurama. Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (born April 9, 2838) is the extremely elderly proprietor of the Planet Express delivery service in the fictional animated television series Futurama. ... This article is about the television series. ...

Selected works

• 1964. Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence
• Continental Philosophy: An Introduction
• 1972. What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence. ISBN 0-06-0011082-1)
• 1979. What Computers Can't Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence. (revised) ISBN 0-06-090613-8, ISBN 0-06-090624-3.
• 1992. What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. ISBN 0-262-54067-3)
• 1986 (with Stuart Dreyfus). Mind Over Machine. Free Press.
• 1991. Being in the World: Division 1.
• 2000. Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science: Essays in Honour of Hubert L. Dreyfus. MIT Press.
• 2001. On the Internet. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22807-7)

Book cover of the 1979 paperback edition What Computers Cant Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 0-06-090613-8) is a controversial work on artificial intelligence, authored by Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... Book cover of the 1979 paperback edition What Computers Cant Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 0-06-090613-8) is a controversial work on artificial intelligence, authored by Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... Book cover of the 1979 paperback edition What Computers Cant Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 0-06-090613-8) is a controversial work on artificial intelligence, authored by Hubert Dreyfus, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

Notes

References

• Crevier, Daniel (1993), AI: The Tumultuous Search for Artificial Intelligence, New York, NY: BasicBooks, ISBN 0-465-02997-3
• George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: the Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books.

Daniel Crevier (born 1947) is a Canadian entrepreneur and artificial intelligence and image processing researcher. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Mark Johnson may refer to: Mark Johnson (professor), philosophy professor Mark Johnson (footballer) (born 1978), Australian rules footballer Mark Johnson (film producer) Mark Johnson (umpire), baseball umpire Mark Johnson (hockey player) (born 1957) Mark Johnson (rugby) Mark Johnson (baseball analyst) Mark Johnson (musician) Mark Johnson (football club director), director of...

External links

• Professor Bert Dreyfus's at the Berkeley Philosophy Department Web page
• Professor Bert Dreyfus's UC Berkeley Home Page
• Professor Bert Dreyfus' online papers at UC Berkeley in archive.org, with links to old Berkeley web page
• Webcast: Man, God, and Society in Western Literature
• Webcast: Existentialism in Literature and Film
• Webcast: Heidegger
• Copy of Article "The iPod Lecture Circuit" by Michelle Quinn in LA Times, November 2007
• Conversations with History, an interview, November 2005