Can present computer science inform philosophy?
Most of the great and fundamental scientific ideas and findings, such the theory of evolution, relativity, or genetics have greatly influenced and imho also enriched philosophy. Or changed our views on this world. Similarly ‘implicating’ ideas in computer science can perhaps be found too, e.g. the Church-Turing theorem or the Turing test. However, comparing to the recent findings from genetics research or space-research, these are relatively ancient. Or have I forgotten something? Or is it really so that computer science research has little to communicate to philosophy?
I think that computer science has a lot to contribute to philosophy. For instance, the ontological problem of the relationship between mind and body has now totally new meanings (software — hardware). “Agency” has got a totally new meaning when people started to think that it might be possible to build a machine with intentionality. Ideas such as Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science give totally new meanings for the universe. And what is the relationship between the flesh-machine and the silicon-machine? (However, to build a Z is not to understand Z — and it is not to understand what is it to be Z.)
Thagard says that “computational ideas have had a substantial impact on the philosophy of mind, but a much smaller impact on epistemology and philosophy of science” (Computing in the Philosophy of Science, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, 2004, p 313), and explains it by the fact that (generally) philosophers have little computational training, but philosophers of mind know enough and so the impact. It seems the part about agency and mind-body problem in the previous comment is in line with this as is my concern that CS could inform (impact, in Thagards words) even more.