Turing: a natural philosopher

Alan Turing: one of
The Great Philosophers

See the Alan Turing Home Page for a guide to this website.

In 1996 Ray Monk, well known as the biographer of Wittgenstein (The Duty of Genius) and of Bertrand Russell, asked me to write a short text on Alan Turing for a series called The Great Philosophers.

This appeared in 1997 as Turing; A Natural Philosopher from Phoenix (London), ISBN 0 753 801922. and Routledge (New York) ISBN: 0415923786.

In 2021 it was reissued by Orion Books (London).
See the publication page for details for the paperback and e-book editions.

In accordance with the scheme of the Great Philosophers series, the text is intended to show exactly what Turing wrote, for instance regarding the Turing machine and the Turing test. Of the 58 pages about half are taken up with original Turing text and half with commentary.

To some extent this is a condensed version of what I said about Turing's ideas in my biography Alan Turing: the Enigma. But this book introduced a new perspective, stimulated by Roger Penrose's books The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind.

In 2000, twelve of the original twenty-four Great Philosophers texts were compiled for a single omnibus volume. Entitled The Great Philosophers, this is subtitled From Socrates to Turing. From hemlock to cyanide, in fact.

Hardback The chosen twelve are: Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Marx, Russell, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Popper and Turing. Like the original series, the omnibus volume is edited by Ray Monk and Frederic Raphael.

Paperback

Translations

The text also appeared in Spanish translation,
published by Editorial Norma S.A., Bogota, Colombia, 1998
ISBN 958-04-4579-6

in Polish translation, published by Wydawnictwo Amber, Warszawa, 1998
ISBN 83-7169-568-3, price zl 9.80

in Portuguese translation, published by UNESP, Sao Paulo, 1999
ISBN 85-7139-348-6

and in Finnish translation, ISBN 952-1-1673-3.

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