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BY 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access August 23, 2019

Computer Science and Metaphysics: A Cross-Fertilization

  • Daniel Kirchner EMAIL logo , Christoph Benzmüller and Edward N. Zalta
From the journal Open Philosophy

Abstract

Computational philosophy is the use of mechanized computational techniques to unearth philosophical insights that are either difficult or impossible to find using traditional philosophical methods. Computational metaphysics is computational philosophy with a focus on metaphysics. In this paper, we (a) develop results in modal metaphysics whose discovery was computer assisted, and (b) conclude that these results work not only to the obvious benefit of philosophy but also, less obviously, to the benefit of computer science, since the new computational techniques that led to these results may be more broadly applicable within computer science. The paper includes a description of our background methodology and how it evolved, and a discussion of our new results.

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Received: 2019-04-28
Accepted: 2019-06-03
Published Online: 2019-08-23

© 2019 Daniel Kirchner et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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