TECH Signal 153
What Naur got wrong from The concept of mind
Naur's paper is a touchstone in discussions of how programming knowledge is held and lost by teams; if its philosophical grounding is off, practitioners should reconsider what 'theory building' actually entails. Under Ryle's corrected reading, programming-as-theory-building emphasizes intelligent practice—applying and refining criteria while working—rather than holding ineffable knowledge that cannot be expressed in rules.
Written by elseif from the cluster below · every claim links back to a sourceThe three things worth knowing
Naur incorrectly placed Ryle's concept alongside Popper's World 3 objects, when Ryle's project in 'The concept of mind' explicitly rejects the mind/body dualism that Popper's separate mental world presupposes.
Naur attributed to 'theories' the property that they cannot be reduced to rules or criteria, but Ryle's actual claim was that intelligence—not theory—is what cannot be so reduced, because intelligence lies in applying criteria, not merely satisfying them.
Despite the philosophical mix-up, the author argues Ryle's framework actually supports the programming-as-theory-building claim more cleanly: the programmer iteratively refining a program parallels Ryle's thinker who is both using and still mastering a theory.
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