What makes something "ad hoc"
Roger C. Schank · 1978
Only one of the questions posed before this session really inspires me to take pen in hand."How general are various formalisms?Are they really ad hoc solutions to relatively narrow domains?"That is not exactly my favorite question.I find the thought of having to address it palatable only if I can delude myself into believing that this is the last time I shall have to deal with it.So, proceeding on the basis of that delusional belief, I shall begin.Ad Hoeness, I have come to believe, is a disease that all new theories in the three fields in which I consider myself well-versed, namely linguistics, psychology and Artificial Intelligence, contract at conception, sort of like original sin.This would not be so bad if it were a disease for which there were a cure, but alas there is none.