In diesem Kapitel versuchen die Autoren, die implizit vorhendenen, aber meist ungenannten Annahmen aufzuzeigen, die hinter einem rationalistischen Weltverständnis stehen und für die traditionelle Wissenschaft selbstverständlich sind.

Chapter 2 describes the rationalistic tradition in sorne detail, showing how it serves as a basis for our culture's comrnonsense understanding of language, thought, and rationality. Our goal is to reveal biases and assumptions that are concealed by their embodiment in the background of our language.

Current thinking about computers and their impact on society has been shaped by a rationalistic tradition that needs to be re-examined and challenged as a source of understanding. As a first step we will characterize the tradition of rationalism and logical empiricism that can be traced back at least to Plato . This tradition has been the mainspring of Western science and technology, and has demonstrated its effectiveness most clearly in the 'hard sciences'-those that explain the operation of deterministic mechanisms whose principles can be captured in formal systems. The tradition finds its highest expression in mathematics and logic, and has greatly infiuenced the development of linguistics and cognitive psychology. We will make no attempt to provide a full historical account of this tradition, or to situate it on some kind of intellectual map.. lnstead, we have chosen to concentrate on understanding its effects on current discourse and practice, especially in relation to the development and impact of computers. The purpose of this chapter is to outline its major points and illustrate their embodiment in current theories of language, mind, and action.