The Next Socrates is a Programmer

By  FORREST ZENG ‘26

I’m a STEM kid.

Any of my friends will tell you differently—that I’m more likely to hunker down in the library and read a philosophy book than join the robotics team at school. However, I used to program for hours a day, creating APIs and solving USACO problems with Python. At heart, I’m still a nerdy programmer. 

And four years later, as a nerdy philosophy student, I’m infinitely glad that I took programming. 

Here are four reasons why the next great philosophers are probably going to be programmers.

First, programming teaches you to understand systems.

Systems are everything in philosophy.

Understanding logical systems is crucial to both programming and philosophy. 

To program successfully, you often have to understand and memorize complex systems in your mind. There’s so much mental strain in creating and understanding complex, formulaic systems. 

However, programmers understand these systems with ease. That’s why programmers are so adept at mentally navigating logical arguments—even philosophical ones. That’s why it was so easy for me to study philosophy in high school. I had years of experience in understanding logical systems—I just had to transfer that to philosophy.

If philosophy is the poetry of logic, then programmers can easily become the poets. 

Second, programming helps you learn complex languages quickly.

This summer, I ranked first in the nation in the National Latin Reading Comprehension Exam. 

I had only taken Latin for two years—no different than many of my peers at Exeter. The difference? I already had years of reading comprehension under my belt from programming.

A vast majority of philosophers know multiple languages, especially classical ones such as Latin and Greek. Latin, which is notoriously rigid and complex, actually pales in comparison to some of the most complex programming languages. When you learn a programming language such as Python, you develop a spatial intuition for language composition. That intuition transfers naturally to new languages. 

It’s no coincidence that the second-place winner of Exeter’s annual Latin Comprehension Exam also leads our robotics team. 

Third, programming teaches problem-solving skills.

Philosophy is nothing without counterarguments.

In fact, philosophy is made up of counterarguments. Programming is the same. 

Oftentimes, programming looks like this. You make a complex program, then run it. 9 out of 10 times, it breaks—so you react, identify the mistake in your logic, and run it again. This cycle repeats over and over again. So as a programmer, you’ll always be looking out for exceptions, errors, and flaws in your code. 

This makes programmers incredibly adept at solving problems. Philosophers are always looking for counterarguments and exceptions to their ideas, just as programmers are always looking for programming errors.

Programmers understand problems differently—exactly the same way philosophers understand problems with their theories differently.  

Fourth, programming will likely be the subject of future philosophy.

In a post-modern era where questions about life and knowledge are constantly intermingling with questions about technology, a broad understanding of such technology is crucial for modern philosophy.

No example can be more acute than Artificial Intelligence. Today, Artificial Intelligence serves to threaten human art. Today, mass computing raises existential questions about our understanding of human thought. Today, social media has created new dimensions of interpersonal communication, thrusting into light unprecedented questions about information and society.

And the best way to understand such technology is to understand it from the inside to the outside.

Just as philosophers centuries ago had to understand the mathematics of shapes and nature or classical languages to read the ancient conversations in Socrates’ Agora, philosophers nowadays need to understand the language of technology.

So what’s my point?

Throughout ages, society and technology have changed constantly. With change comes new questions, and new generations of philosophers who try and answer these questions. But one thing has always remained true: philosophers work in systems and logic.

Our world is steadily being shaded by an advent of strange, never-seen before technology. 

And philosophers need to do everything they can to understand it—even if it means learning how to talk to computers.