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Computers seem as importuning, to some of us at least, as Socrates ever was. They can produce in us the same amazement and the same shamefaced puzzlement about the most elementary of human things; they evoke reactions ranging from jokes with an undertone of uneasiness to denunciations of "computerized societies' (though unlike Socrates they are too useful to be threatened with extinction); and despite the fundamental questions about ourselves they pose — or reflect — to us, they force us to work out the answers for ourselves: or at least, they respond only to precisely formulated queries. Moreover, one often has the feeling that the dialogue is aporetic rather than dogmatic, that it moves toward a clarification of our ignorance rather than toward an epistemic answer. If this is the case, the question is whether it is a learned ignorance or sheer nescience. I want to try to state a case for the former, on the basis of a recurring difficulty in several areas of artificial intelligence.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-3378-7_8

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