Towards a hermeneutic definition of software
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22234712 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Luca M Possati (0000-0002-7110-6107, Universidade do Porto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2020-08-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2662-9992 • E-ISSN: 2662-9992 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41599-020-00565-0 |
| OpenAlex | W3081059041 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
The paper intends to establish a comprehensive definition of software from a postphenomenological and hermeneutic point of view. It intends to show the contribution of continental philosophy to the study of new technologies. In section “Introduction: why do we need a comprehensive definition of software?,” I underline the need for a philosophical analysis that can highlight the multifaceted and paradoxical nature of software. In section “Engineering in written form: the five criteria,” starting from some remarks on the history of programming languages, I define a list of minimal requirements (five criteria) that something needs to meet to be qualified as software. All these requirements share two essential features: the written form and the effectiveness, that is, the need to be executed by a physical machine. In section “Software as text: a hermeneutic model,” I focus on software as form of writing. I develop this idea by using Ricoeur’s hermeneutic model. I claim that software is a type of text. In section “The grammatology of microprocessor,” I focus on the second aforementioned feature: the effectiveness of software. I claim that this effectiveness is based on the analogy between electric circuitries and Boolean logic. Software is a writing and re-writing process that implies an interpretation on two levels, epistemological and ontological
Analogy · Epistemology · Programming language · Software construction · Software development · Software engineering · Software requirements · Cognitive Computing and Networks · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Computer Science · Philosophy · Semantic Web and Ontologies · Software
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |