Article ID: CBB024398139

Imitation in automata and robots: A philosophical case study on Kempelen (2023)

unapi

With robots being of far-ranging public and academic interest, attempts are made to set these into relation to earlier self-moving machines. Automata from European Enlightenment, especially in the 18th century, are such machines being referenced. The debate revolves around the question whether the design and the purpose of the construction of these automata can be viewed as antedating epistemological conceptualizations formulated with regards to the scientific employment of robotics as a synthetic modeling practice in contemporary life sciences. This paper reflects on a claim made in this context, namely that the construction of 18th century automata and 21st century robots share the epistemic role of simulating the core processes of living organisms and are thus indicative of an epistemological continuity in how organisms are conceived as machines. To philosophically investigate whether such a statement is taking changes in material, political, and technological conditions into account, a case study of Kempelen's Sprechmaschine from 1791 is done. The paper asserts that it should be historicized what makes a machine fit the concept of an automaton––and thus also poses the broader question what extent of caution must be taken in identifying automata with robots.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB024398139/

Similar Citations

Thesis Aytes, Ayhan; (2012)
The “Other” in the Machine: Oriental Automata and the Mechanization of the Mind (/isis/citation/CBB001560964/)

Book Kang, Minsoo; (2011)
Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination (/isis/citation/CBB001023105/)

Article Christopher P. Noble; (2023)
Automata, reason, and free will: Leibniz's critique of Descartes on animal and human nature (/isis/citation/CBB657168078/)

Book Standage, Tom; (2002)
The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine (/isis/citation/CBB000430274/)

Book Charles T. Wolfe; Paolo Pecere; Antonio Clericuzio; (2022)
Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB728971419/)

Book Voskuhl, Adelheid; (2013)
Androids in the Enlightenment: Mechanics, Artisans, and Cultures of the Self (/isis/citation/CBB001452021/)

Article Marco Tamborini; (2023)
The elephant in the room: The biomimetic principle in bio-robotics and embodied AI (/isis/citation/CBB283870317/)

Article Isabel Gabel; (2018)
La biologie, la réflexivité et l’histoire: Réinscrire Canguilhem dans son milieu (/isis/citation/CBB085805175/)

Book Pierre-Olivier Méthot; (2023)
Philosophy, History and Biology: Essays in Honour of Jean Gayon (/isis/citation/CBB066863207/)

Article Simon Lohse; (2021)
Scientific inertia in animal-based research in biomedicine (/isis/citation/CBB124857110/)

Book Marco Storni; (2022)
Maupertuis: le philosophe, l’académicien, le polémiste (/isis/citation/CBB389178287/)

Article Anne-Lise Rey; (2021)
Présentation : l’épistémologie inventive d’Émilie Du Châtelet (/isis/citation/CBB995918149/)

Article Lena Zuchowski; (2019)
Modelling and knowledge transfer in complexity science (/isis/citation/CBB732848503/)

Book Lorenzo Magnani; Tommaso Bertolotti; (2017)
Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science (/isis/citation/CBB558667543/)

Article Baetu, Tudor M.; (2014)
Models and the Mosaic of Scientific Knowledge. The Case of Immunology (/isis/citation/CBB001420084/)

Article François Claveau; Melissa Vergara Fernández; (2015)
Epistemic Contributions of Models: Conditions for Propositional Learning (/isis/citation/CBB935723283/)

Article Maria Keil; (2020)
Verwischte Grenzen zwischen Präparat und Modell (/isis/citation/CBB990446007/)

Book Stephen M. Downes; (2020)
Models and Modeling in the Sciences: A Philosophical Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB447397348/)

Article Paul Humphreys; (2019)
Knowledge transfer across scientific disciplines (/isis/citation/CBB157398063/)

Article Wybo Houkes; Sjoerd D. Zwart; (2019)
Transfer and templates in scientific modelling (/isis/citation/CBB526837346/)

Authors & Contributors
Aytes, Ayhan
Baetu, Tudor M.
Clericuzio, Antonio
Downes, Stephen M.
Houkes, Wybo
Humphreys, Paul W.
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Medizinhistorisches Journal
Perspectives on Science
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Publishers
Springer International Publishing
University of Chicago
Harvard University Press
Honoré Champion
Routledge
Springer
Concepts
Philosophy of science
Epistemology
Models and modeling in science
Automata; robotics; cyborgs
Diffusion of innovation; diffusion of knowledge; diffusion of technology
Knowledge circulation
People
Kempelen, Wolfgang von
Aron, Raymond C. F.
Canguilhem, Georges
Descartes, René
Gayon, Jean
Humphreys, Paul W.
Time Periods
Enlightenment
18th century
20th century
21st century
Early modern
19th century
Places
Europe
Paris (France)
Berlin (Germany)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment