Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice

published on December 12, 2023

Philosophy Through Computation
Two Examples

We explore the possibility of teaching philosophy through the teaching of computer programming. It is pedagogically useful to use programming because it is extremely popular (especially due to the recent breakthroughs in machine learning), and it can provide a novel, interesting, and clear introduction to a variety of classic philosophical issues. We discuss two examples. The first is using programming to solve digital image manipulation tasks as a way of introducing and clarifying debates over external world skepticism. The second is programming a simulation of a simple 2-D cellular automaton as a way of introducing and clarifying debates over determinism and free will.