Programming Research Group Technical Monograph PRG-89

Joseph A. Goguen

October 1990, 33 pages

This monograph consists of four papers on social and philosophical aspects of computing. The first, third and fourth were written for the book Software Development and Reality Construction, which grew out of an interdisciplinary conference held in Schloss Eringerfeld, Germany, in September of 1988. The second was written as a position paper for the conference Formal Methods 89 which was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in July of 1989.

The first paper is concerned with the role of errors in computing, and in particular, with the regrettable tendency within some schools of Formal Methods to claim that errors can and should play no role at all.

The second paper is largely concerned with philosophical aspects of Formal Methods, and in particular with the recent controversies about whether computing systems can be "proved correct," and indeed, with what we mean by "proved" and by "correct," and how such mathematical concepts connect with the real world.

The third paper goes somewhat deeper into certain philosophical problems about meaning and truth. It contrasts the "modern" formalist position of the logical positivists like Carnap with the views of Heidegger and Wittgenstein. This has serious consequences for our understanding of correctness problems in computing.

The fourth paper takes us somewhat further afield. It is an attempt to connect the process of interpretation with the philosophy of Buddhist meditation.