On the Metaphysics of Implementation

Abstract

Although implementation is ubiquitous in computer science, there is no systematic philosophical analysis of its metaphysical structure. In this article, I argue that the conceptual resources of analytical metaphysics can be very helpful in laying the foundations for a metaphysics of implementation and, by extension, of computer science. More specifically, I hold that implementation is a form of metaphysical grounding, and I show that, by combining the properties of grounding with the specific constraints of computer science, one can clarify what a metaphysics of computer science could look like. In sections 2 and 3 of the article, I discuss various meanings of implementation, while in section 4, I submit my central claim that implementation is a form of metaphysical grounding. I substantiate this claim by showing that implementation and grounding share the same formal properties. If this is correct, then issues of ontological dependence, metaphysical explanation, hyperintensionality, and foundedness, typically associated with grounding, can be re-formulated in computer science using the concept of implementation. This is what I do in sections 5.1-5.4. I conclude with some general remarks about the future development of computer science's metaphysics.

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Massimiliano Badino
Università degli Studi di Verona

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References found in this work

Guide to Ground.Kit Fine - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder, Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37--80.
Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann, Modality: metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. qnew York: Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.
Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
The philosophy of information.Luciano Floridi - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Physical Computation: A Mechanistic Account.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.

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