On the Origin of Objects (Bradford Books) [Paperback]

Brian Cantwell Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 1998 | Series: Bradford Books

On the Origin of Objects is the culmination of Brian Cantwell Smith's decade-long investigation into the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of computation, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Based on a sustained critique of the formal tradition that underlies the reigning views, he presents an argument for an embedded, participatory, "irreductionist," metaphysical alternative. Smith seeks nothing less than to revise our understanding not only of the machines we build but also of the world with which they interact.Smith's ambitious project begins as a search for a comprehensive theory of computation, able to do empirical justice to practice and conceptual justice to the computational theory of mind. A rigorous commitment to these two criteria ultimately leads him to recommend a radical overhaul of our traditional conception of metaphysics.Everything that exists - objects, properties, life, practice - lies Smith claims in the "middle distance," an intermediate realm of partial engagement with and partial separation from, the enveloping world. Patterns of separation and engagement are taken to underlie a single notion unifying representation and ontology: that of subjects' "registration" of the world around them.Along the way, Smith offers many fascinating ideas: the distinction between particularity and individuality, the methodological notion of an "inscription error," an argument that there are no individualswithin physics, various deconstructions of the type-instance distinction, an analysis of formality as overly disconnected ("discreteness run amok"), a conception of the boundaries of objects as properties of unruly interactions between objects and subjects, an argument for the theoretical centrality of reference preservation, and a theatrical, acrobatic metaphor for the contortions involved in the preservation of reference and resultant stabilization of objects. Sidebars and diagrams throughout the book help clarify and guide Smith's highly original and compelling argument.A Bradford Book

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Like the work of Simon, Chomsky, Kuhn, and Foucault, Brian CantwellSmith's On the Origin of Objects comes into philosophy from theoutside and stands to shake things up. This is an essay in fundamentalmetaphysics, but not like any we've ever seen before. Bringing toontology the training of a computer scientist, and the sensibilitiesof an artist-engineer, Smith recreates our understanding of objectsessentially from scratch—and changes, I think, everything." John Haugeland , Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

About the Author

Brian Cantwell Smith is Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (January 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262692090
• ISBN-13: 978-0262692090
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #973,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A difficult but fascinating, August 23, 1998

By 

Roman Krzanowski ([e-mail]) (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Origin of Objects (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

Fascinating!, Riveting!, Exquisite!. But. This is not an easy book. This is not an easy reading. From the first page, B. Smith throws at the reader the whole apparatus of the philosophical jargon. And it does not ease up towards the end. So, if you are not a philosopher but merely a computer scientist you could be lost. The difficulty of the topic (more about it later) is magnified by the writing style: Smith's style does not have a clarity of Gallileo letters. Nor does it have the brilliance and illuminating simplicity of Russell's essays. It is more like a style of someone who is struggling with his topic and with the language. You have an impression that the author is trying to shake the shackles of the language to express some deep thoughts that are intuitively understandable but are impossible to express, that those ideas he is trying to tell us about, are beyond the normal grasp of the language, beyond its expressive powers. And he makes us fully participate in this struggle. So what is the topic of the book? Smith attempts to answer the oldest of questions man/woman dared to ask- the question of what is out there. And while the question for a long time remained mainly of interest to philosophers, with the advent of computers and computer models it entered the mainstream of the human thought. Anyone who has been struggling with the computer (or computerized) representations and computer models of any system or any process (in fact of anything), will appreciate Smith's discourse.

Smith's thesis is that there is nothing out there such as a box, a house, a river, a cloud, etc.(examples are a bit simplistic and Smith goes beyond them). What is out there is a " constant flux" and we, through our participation in the flux, by our intentional stance "make things" out of it. We segment the reality into what make sense to us because of our intentions (intention in a larger, than everyday, sense) Thus, every struggle to nail down the models of reality using Yes/No abstract logic, will fail because the One reality has multiple realizations, each of them is true and the key to them (and what is missing in our Yes/No models) is the "participation" or the intentional stance. Smith asks questions that strike at the very heart of our understanding of the world and at the very essence of what we think computers are, do, or can do, and how they do. If you are brave enough to probe the same depths of human experience this book is for you.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tough read but worth it, June 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: On the Origin of Objects (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

This book is not for the faint of heart, and if you believe that reading is an intellectual investment rather than just a casual pastime you will certainly benefit from this book. Once you get past Smith's academic language you realize that he has a very important message - that all computational systems are based upon a fundamental philosophical foundation, or ontology as he puts it. Every computational system we design and use is based upon our perceptions(subject) of objects - and the objects and models that arise from the subject-object no-man's land. There is no true platonic ideal, but rather a fuzzy metaphysical boundarys and objects that kinda work sometimes. If you are looking for a book that makes you take a big step in your day to day thinking and how you apply it, this is the book

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Theory of Reference, Latour-style, July 14, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On the Origin of Objects (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

The argumentation is uneven, but the good stretches contain
enough new ideas to make it a good read. The core of
the book is the notion that referential links have to
be *maintained*. A subsidiary theme is that your metaphysics
should satisfy two constraints: it should make sense of
computer science, and it should allow for the world being
intrinsically very, very messy. If you like Bruno Latour,
and you're interested in metaphysics and epistemology, you'll probably like this. (If you dislike Latour, you'll probably dislike this.)