Roberto Cordeschi

Interview

• "The development of artificial intelligence" (Roma - Studio, 11/08/95)

Biography

Born in L'Aquila in 1946, Roberto Cordeschi (cordeschi@caspur.it) studied philosophy and mathematics at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza', where he graduated with a thesis on the philosophy of science under the supervision of Vittorio Somenzi and Lucio Lombardo Radice. After a scholarship at the British Council in Oxford, he carried out teaching and research activities at the philosophy of science faculty of Somenzi. He has taught the philosophy of science at the Department of the Science of Communication of the Faculty of literature and philosophy at the University of Salerno (http://www.unisa.it ) since 1988.

He was part of the operating unit of the CNR's robotics goal-oriented project at the Department of Physical Sciences of the University of Naples 'Federico II', directed by Giuseppe Trautteur. He has worked on several occasions with the CNR's Cybernetics Unit at Arco Felice, in particular with the research group led by Ernesto Burattini and Guglielmo Tamburrini.

He is a member of the Italian Logic and Philosophy of Science Society and the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences.

With Israel Rosenfield, he was in charge of the cybernetics and artificial intelligence section of the scientific exhibition "La fabbrica del pensiero. Dall'arte della memoria alle neuroscienze", created by Pietro Corsi, which was shown in Florence 1989 and in Paris in 1991.

He contributes to the review "Le Scienze", and edited its "Quaderno Filosofia della mente" (n. 91, 1996).
His principal research interests are the history of cybernetics and the epistemological problems of Artificial Intelligence and cognitive science.

He is the author of numerous publications on these subjects, including: The discovery of the artificial, in 'Artificial Intelligence and Society' 1991 (5); A few words on representation and meaning, in 'International Studies in the Philosophy of Science', 1992 (6); The role of heuristics in automated theorem proving, in ´Mathware and Soft Computing', 1996 (3); La teoria dell'elaborazione umana dell'informazione, in Evoluzione e modelli (ed. with V. Somenzi), Editori Riuniti, Roma 1984; Brain, mind and computers, in The enchanted loom. Chapters in the history of neuroscience (ed. with P. Corsi), Oxford University Press, Oxford 1991; L'Intelligenza Artificiale, in L. Geymonat, Storia del pensiero filosofico e scientifico, vol. 8, t. III (a cura di E. Bellone e C. Mangione), Garzanti, Milano 1996.