Table of Contents

Part 1 Ten years of research in artificial intelligence (1957-1967): phase I (1957-1962) cognitive simulation - analysis of work in language translation, problem solving, and pattern recognition, the underlying significance of failure to achieve predicted results; phase II (1962-1967) semantic information processing - analysis of semantic information processing programmes, significance of current difficulties. Part 2 Assumptions underlying persistent optimism: the biological assumption; the psychological assumption - empirical evidence for the psychological assumption - critique of the scientific methodology of cognitive simulation, "A Priori" arguments for the psychological assumptions; the epistemological assumption - a mistaken argument from the success of physics, a mistaken argument from the success of modern linguistics; the ontological assumption. Part 3 Alternatives to the traditional assumptions: the role of the body in intelligent behaviour; the situation - orderly behaviour without recourse to rulels; the situation as a function of human needs. Part 4 Conclusion - the scope and limits of artificial reason: the limits of artificial intelligence - the future of artificial intelligence.

About the Author

Hubert L. Dreyfus is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley.