Scholar's Award - The Matter of Calculation: Early Modern Calculating Machines, Statecraft and Thinking about Thinking

关于计算的问题：早期现代计算机器、治国方略和思考哥伦比亚大学马修·L·琼斯哥伦比亚大学在17世纪，数学家们设计了能够进行算术运算的计算器，长期以来，人们一直认为计算器是理性生物的专属领域。布莱斯·帕斯卡和戈特弗里德·威廉·莱布尼茨发明的新机器挑战了人类纯粹的动物能力和理性能力之间的界限。现有的早期现代计算机器的历史很大程度上描绘了它们的技术发展，很少关注哲学和政治背景或用途。帕斯卡和莱布尼茨最初构思并生产了他们的机器，作为治理和科学工作的实用计算工具。这个项目将首先描述当地的官僚、政治和技术背景，主要是在法国和德国，帕斯卡和莱布尼茨在那里开发了他们的机器；然后将探索他们和其他人在他们的机器中发现的哲学、技术和政治影响，直到18世纪。该项目还将审查塞缪尔·莫兰德的作品，这位英国工匠在18世纪开发了自己的计算机器。该项目将在很大程度上依赖于对德国、英国和法国的档案来源的分析。智力价值：这个项目将超越现有的计算机器技术史，通过提供关于它们创造的政治和官僚背景、它们的预期用途以及它们的哲学和科学影响的知情研究。该项目将对现代计算的历史、计算在治国方略中的作用以及密切关注哲学家所做的具体技术工作的哲学史做出重大贡献。更广泛的影响：该项目旨在为受过良好教育的普通读者提供一份文本，(1)探索早期现代对机器和人类智能之间边界的担忧，(2)将它们与当代关于人工智能的问题进行比较，以及(3)强调智力创新和手工技能在技术变革中的相互作用。

The Matter of Calculation:Early Modern Calculating Machines, Statecraft and Thinking about ThinkingMatthew L. Jones Columbia UniversityIn the seventeenth century mathematicians devised calculating machines capable ofperforming arithmetical operations long considered the exclusive province of rational beings. The new machines invented by Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz challenged the boundary between the merely animal and rational capacities of human beings. Existing histories of early modern calculating machines largely chart their technological development with little attention to philosophical and political context or uses. Pascal and Leibniz initially conceived and produced their machines as practical tools of calculation for governance and scientific work. This project will first describe the local bureaucratic, political, and technical contexts, largely in France and Germany, in which Pascal and Leibniz developed their machines; and then will explore the philosophical, technological, and political implications they and others found in their machines into the eighteenth century. The project will also examine the work of Samuel Morland, an English artisan who developed his own calculating machine in the eighteenth century. The project will rely heavily on analysis of archival sources in Germany, England and France. Intellectual merit: This project will go beyond existing technical histories of the calculating machines by providing an informed study of the political and bureaucratic contexts of their creation, their intended uses, and their philosophical and scientific implications. The project will make a significant contribution to the history of modern calculation, to the role of calculation in statecraft, and to a history of philosophy that pays close attention to the concrete, technical work done by philosophers. Broader impact: The project aims to produce a text for an audience of general well educated readers that (1) explores early modern concerns about the boundary between machine and human intelligence, (2) compares them with contemporary questions about artificial intelligence, and (3) underscores the interplay of intellectual innovation and artisanal skill in technological change.