Burrell on Rules, Instructions, and Machines
Frank R. Harrison III, Southwestern Philosophical Society · Southwestern Journal of Philosophy · 1972
David Burrell in his essay, Obeying Rules and Following Instructions/'1 has helped to clarify knotty questions revolving around the concepts of rules and instructions . But primarily he is concerned with drawing distinctions between rules and instructions and then applying his results to philosophically interesting problems dealing with machines, i.e., general-purpose computers. Burrell concludes that it makes little or no sense to speak of computers obeying rules, although humans can. Burrell's position, if it holds, would be very useful in dislodging the thesis 'Machines can do everything men can/ And since the thesis 'Men are nothing more than machines' entails 'Machines can do everything men can/ to deny the latter entails the denial of the former.2 Burrell has presented a strong case for suggesting it is senseless to say computers can obey rules. Still there are several points which are worrisome. It is these I wish to consider after a brief sum-