(Physio)logical circuits: the intellectual origins of the McCulloch-Pitts neural networks

Abstract

This article examines the intellectual and institutional factors that contributed to the collaboration of neuropsychiatrist Warren McCulloch and mathematician Walter Pitts on the logic of neural networks, which culminated in their 1943 publication, "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity." Historians and scientists alike often refer to the McCulloch-Pitts paper as a landmark event in the history of cybernetics, and fundamental to the development of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to bring some historical context to the McCulloch-Pitts collaboration itself, namely, their intellectual and scientific orientations and backgrounds, the key concepts that contributed to their paper, and the institutional context in which their collaboration was made. Although they were almost a generation apart and had dissimilar scientific backgrounds, McCulloch and Pitts had similar intellectual concerns, simultaneously motivated by issues in philosophy, neurology, and mathematics. This article demonstrates how these issues converged and found resonance in their model of neural networks. By examining the intellectual backgrounds of McCulloch and Pitts as individuals, it will be shown that besides being an important event in the history of cybernetics proper, the McCulloch-Pitts collaboration was an important result of early twentieth-century efforts to apply mathematics to neurological phenomena.