Of Conceptual Intersections and Verbal Collisions: Towards the Routing of Slezak

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Abstract
I argue that AI, as described by Slezak, is too diffuse an entity to score any direct hits on SSK. I begin by highlighting Slezak's affinities with positivism and internalist history of science, but then observe a dilemma in his attempt to seek refuge under the mantles of both Herbert Simon and Noam Chomsky: Chomsky's cognitive creationism is incompatible with Simon's programmed discoveries. Throughout, I attack the empirical testability of the AI research on which Slezak most heavily relies, as well as defend the wisdom of SSK's reliance on behaviourism. Nevertheless, I claim that, for all its faults, AI research needs to be taken more seriously by SSK, on both intellectual and political grounds, but that rapprochement between AI and SSK is a long way off.

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