The formalist manifesto [artificial intelligence]

A categorical model of problem solving is introduced. The concept is that domain-dependent knowledge can also take the form of structural knowledge about the domain and, more specifically, that the decomposition methods that have proved to be so effective in mathematical reasoning can also be applied in the case of artificial intelligence systems. The fact that such knowledge is superficially more arcane because of its abstract nature does not automatically indict it as being necessarily weak. It is shown that a number of algebraic approaches to problem solving can be incorporated into the viewpoint