The Porphyrian Tree and Multiple Inheritance: A Rejoinder to Tylman on Computer Science and Philosophy.

Tylman (Found Sci, <xref>2017</xref>) has recently pointed out some striking conceptual and methodological analogies between philosophy and computer science. In this paper, I focus on one of Tylman’s most convincing cases, viz. the similarity between Plato’s theory of Ideas and the object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm, and analyze it in some more detail. In particular, I argue that the (Neo)platonic doctrine of the Porphyrian tree corresponds to the fact that most object-oriented programming languages do not support multiple inheritance. This analysis further reinforces Tylman’s point regarding the conceptual continuity between classical metaphysical theorizing and contemporary computer science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]