Digital reflective judgement: a Kantian perspective on software

Abstract

In this paper, I formulate an analysis of software from a Kantian perspective. The central thesis is that software is a form of reflective judgment, namely, "digital reflective judgement". This transcendental approach allows us to overcome the limitations of an overly dualistic and over-intellectualized conception of software. The paper is structured as follows. In section 2, I develop a series of criticisms of Turner's (2018) approach. Turner defines software as a computational artifact and distinguishes two series of its properties: functional and structural. I argue that this distinction cannot be applied to software and that Turner's approach cannot explain the essence of software, namely, its twofold nature-abstract and concrete-at the same time. Moreover, Turner's perspective is characterized by some philosophical limitations. In sections 3 and 4, I present a proposed definition of software from a transcendental Kantian perspective, that is, by using the concept of reflective judgment. In section 5, I explain why and how we can consider software as a new form of reflective judgment. This judgement is based on a specific type of imaginative act that mediates between physical implementations and mathematical structures. In section 6, through a parallelism between software and the Kantian judgment of taste, I hold that the condition of possibility of software is the principle of finality, which is shown in the design. Software is, above all, a design act. In the conclusion, I show why this approach overcomes Turner's limitations and is much closer to how programmers conceive their work.