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

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2021.3135714

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