Jonas Weibull

Recent developments in artificial intelligence have prompted renewed philosophical attention to the attribution of cognitive, mental and semantic properties to artificial systems. Much of this work is today explicitly grouped under the label ”philosophy of AI”. This paper asks whether philosophy of AI constitutes a distinct philosophical field. I argue that it does not. Rather than introducing a novel subject matter, problem set or methodology, work grouped under philosophy of AI aggregates questions drawn from philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of science, together with empirical research on artificial systems. The argument proceeds by articulating minimal criteria for philosophical field individuation and by distinguishing definitional from explanatory questions as well as philosophical from scientific inquiry. Applying these distinctions to central AI-related debates shows that their apparent unity is misleading. Proper classification deflates some debates, dissolves others and relocates the remainder into established philosophical domains or empirical inquiry. The conclusion is deflationary but constructive: AI provides novel cases for philosophical inquiry, not the basis for a new philosophical field. The result is a clearer basis for distinguishing cross-purposive from substantive disagreement.