PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES OF H. DREYFUS ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

The analysis conducted in the article shows that the question of the ability of artificial intellectual systems to reproduce thinking, outlined by A. Turing in the middle of the 20th century, is not limited only by practical implementation, but rather exacerbates fundamental methodological, epistemological and ontological problems that concern the very understanding of the nature and structure of human intelligence and knowledge. This necessitates raising the question of the definition of the very concept of «intelligence». For this purpose, the author of the article appeals to the ancient heritage, namely, to the multi-valued term «Logos», introduced by Heraclitus. Heraclitus distinguishes two definitions of Logos: «Logos-word» and «Logos-law». Logos as a «word» is a sign, the name of an object that can be formalized and introduced as an element of a formal system, which will find its embodiment in the creation of formal symbolic systems (Aristotle’s logic). Such an understanding of Logos focuses on the analytically discrete properties of thinking. In Dreyfus’s terminology, «Logos-word» is designated as «Knowledge-That». At the same time, the understanding of Logos as a «law», «fate» of things, which Dreyfus calls «Knowledge-How», emphasizes the ability of human thinking to operate with holistic images, that is, to its associative and analogical properties. «Knowledge-How» is manifested in the ability to operate with «images» – holistic representations of what constitutes the essence of an object or phenomenon for us in a certain situation, turns to its conceptual, «background» understanding. H. Dreyfus’s critical analysis demonstrates the failure of reducing human thinking to formal systems in which knowledge is understood exclusively as the manipulation of symbols. His distinction between the concepts of «Knowledge-That» and «Knowledge-How» allows us to more deeply understand aspects of human mental activity and to comprehend the possibilities of modern intellectual systems, which, although capable of depicting analytical thinking, are unable to reproduce the contextual meanings of human thinking.