Classical AI: Symbolic Representation and Control

Knowledge representation, which is today used in database applications, artificial intelligence (AI), software engineering and many other disciplines of computer science has deep roots in logic and philosophy. In the beginning, there was Aristotle (384 bc–322 bc) who developed logic as a precise method for reasoning about knowledge. Syllogisms were introduced as formal patterns for representing special figures of logical deductions. According to Aristotle, the subject of ontology is the study of categories of things that exist or may exist in some domain.

In modern times, Descartes considered the human brain as a store of knowledge representation. Recognition was made possible by an isomorphic correspondence between internal geometrical representations (ideae) and external situations and events. Leibniz was deeply influenced by these traditions. In his mathesis universalis, he required a universal formal language (lingua universalis) to represent human thinking by calculation procedures and to implement them by means of mechanical calculating machines. An ars iudicandi should allow every problem to be decided by an algorithm after representation in numeric symbols. An ars iveniendi should enable users to seek and enumerate desired data and solutions of problems. In the age of mechanics, knowledge representation was reduced to mechanical calculation procedures.

In the twentieth century, computational cognitivism arose in the wake of Turing's theory of computability. In its functionalism, the hardware of a computer is related to the wetware of the human brain. The mind is understood as the software of a computer.