Can a machine think? More pointedly, if I am a machine, can I think? Beck answers these questions by analyzing two clusters of metaphors -- one of which dramatizes human beings as spontaneous agents (actors), and the other sees them as observers attempting to explain causally their own behavior and that of the actor (spectators). Using a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world, Beck points up the central philosophical problems raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and those of others.
- ISBN10 0300018991
- ISBN13 9780300018998
- Publish Date 23 October 1975
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 12 December 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 160
- Language English