Hubert Dreyfus

Hubert Dreyfus (1929-2017) was an American philosopher who taught for decades at the University of California, Berkeley. Working largely within the continental tradition of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics, he became best known for a question that still runs through debates about machines: what can and cannot a thinking machine do? He is therefore read both by historians of philosophy and by readers interested in artificial intelligence.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, he studied at Harvard, where he completed his doctorate in 1964 with a thesis on Husserl's phenomenology of perception. His engagement with Martin Heidegger was lifelong; he is regarded as one of the leading interpreters of Heidegger's work, so much so that critics dubbed his reading "Dreydegger". He also translated Merleau-Ponty and co-wrote a book on Michel Foucault.

His most influential book, "What Computers Can't Do" (1972), challenged the assumptions of classical AI: that the mind works by manipulating symbols according to formal rules, and that human behaviour can be described without reference to context. Drawing on Heidegger, Dreyfus argued that our way of being in the world rests on a bodily and cultural background that cannot be reduced to rules. At the time his claims were seen as pessimistic, though some robotics researchers later acknowledged their force.

His influence reaches philosophers such as Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor, and his students include several who hold philosophy posts at major North American departments.