Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T12:27:08.710Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Notions of Specification and Implementation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Antony Galton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper we consider two key concepts from software engineering—‘specification’ and ‘implementation’—and explore their possible applications outside software engineering to other disciplines, notably the philosophy of action, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. Throughout, the emphasis is on the gain in conceptual clarity that can be afforded by these concepts; it is not so much a matter of new knowledge or new theories but of a reorganization of existing knowledge and theories in a way that facilitates the transfer of insights across a range of related fields.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 34 , March 1993 , pp. 111 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957. Intention. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Churchland, P. S. and Sejnowski, T. J. 1989. ‘Neural representation and neural computation’, in Nadel, L., Cooper, L., Culicover, P. and Harnish, R. M. (eds), Neural Connections, Mental Computations. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Danto, A. C. 1965. ‘Basic Actions’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 2, 141–148.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. 1971. Agency, in Binkley, R.et al. (eds), Agent, Action, and Reason. University of Toronto Press. Reprinted in D. Davidson, 1980, Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. 1982. The Extended Phenotype. W. H. Freeman and Co.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. Longman.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. 1978. Brainstorms. Montgomery, Vermont: Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Fetzer, J. H. 1988. ‘Program verification: the very idea’, Communications of the ACM, 31 (9), 1048–1063.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marr, D. 1982, Vision. W. H. Freeman & Co.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1988. Toward a New Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McClamrock, R. 1991. ‘Marr's three levels: A re-evaluation’, Minds and Machines, 1, 185–196.Google Scholar
Narayanan, A. 1990. On Being a Machine. Volume 2: Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. Chichester: Ellis Horwood.Google Scholar
Partridge, D. 1986. Artificial Intelligence: applications in the future of software engineering. Chichester: Ellis Horwood.Google Scholar
Peacocke, C. 1986. ‘Explanation in computational psychology: language, perception and level 1.5’, Mind and Language, 1(2), 101–123.Google Scholar
Swartout, W. and Balzer, R. 1983. ‘On the inevitable intertwining of specification and implementation’, Communications of the ACM, 25(7), 438–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar