Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
1-2022
Abstract
This article reinterprets algorithmic rationality by looking at the interaction between mathematical logic, mechanized reasoning, and, later, computing in the Russian Imperial and Soviet contexts to offer a history of the algorithm as a mathematical object bridging the inner and outer worlds, a humanistic vision that we, following logician Vladimir Uspensky, call the “culture of the impossible.” We unfold the deep roots of this vision as embodied in scientific intelligentsia. In Part I, we examine continuities between the turn-of-the-twentieth-century discussions of poznaniye—an epistemic orientation towards the process of knowledge acquisition—and the postwar rise of the Soviet school of mathematical logic. Establishing this connection allows us to explain, in Part II, the role of the algorithm in disciplinary dynamics between mathematical logic and cybernetics and a characteristic understanding of programming, not as a narrow skill, but as a matter of consciousness.
Keywords
algorithm, logic, cybernetics, Soviet Union, Cold War, Vladimir Uspensky
Discipline
Logic and Foundations of Mathematics | Philosophy of Science
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Volume
43
Issue
4
First Page
57
Last Page
69
ISSN
1058-6180
Identifier
10.1109/MAHC.2021.3135714
Publisher
IEEE
Citation
TATARCHENKO, Ksenia, Yermakova, Anya, & De Mol, Liesbeth.(2022). Russian logics and the culture of impossible: Part II: Reinterpreting algorithmic rationality. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 43(4), 57-69.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3544
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2021.3135714