To execute, rewrite, and debug: On the construction and deconstruction of computation

Current discourses on computational media display a fascination with the linguistic, numeric, algorithmic, and material aspects of technology, from which several new domains of study have emerged in the past several years, including Software Studies, Digital Humanities, and Media Archeology, to name but a few. One can argue that these by now well-established programmatic ventures are symptomatic of a profound transformation taking place within the core epistemological apparatus of the Humanities: the fact that technology, rather than being a mere surrogate for the human body or the human mind, displaces and neutralises the sensible and the thinkable as it confronts age-old ways of sense making. This dissertation addresses this problematic by looking at the various epistemological ruptures and sutures that have transformed how we conceive of sense making from the late 19th century onwards. The dissertation’s main object is computation and its diverse historical moments, conceptual articulations, and artefacts. It directly addresses questions of language (logos) and its sense-effects in relation to mathematics, logic, proof theory, software execution and debugging, as well as works of modern literature. These questions are read and problematised through three types of idioms: onto-logic—asking the question “what is”—, logo-logic—asking the question “according to which rules”—, and finally deonto-logic—asking the question “what ought to be.” In turn, the question of sense is approached through a constructivist logic of action whose aim is to attend to the event and force of execution which necessarily exceeds any of its ensuing results