Allo, P.; Baumgaertner, B.; D'Alfonso, S.; Fresco, N.; Gobbo, F.; Grubaugh, C.; Iliadis, A.; Illari, P.; Kerr, E.; Primiero, G.; Russo, F.; Schulz, C.; Taddeo, M.; Turilli, M.; Vakarelov, O.; Zenil, H.: ¬The philosophy of information : an introduction (2013)
0.00
0.0037463026 = product of:
0.02997042 = sum of:
0.02997042 = weight(_text_:work in 3380) [ClassicSimilarity], result of:
0.02997042 = score(doc=3380,freq=6.0), product of:
0.14223081 = queryWeight, product of:
3.6703904 = idf(docFreq=3060, maxDocs=44218)
0.03875087 = queryNorm
0.2107168 = fieldWeight in 3380, product of:
2.4494898 = tf(freq=6.0), with freq of:
6.0 = termFreq=6.0
3.6703904 = idf(docFreq=3060, maxDocs=44218)
0.0234375 = fieldNorm(doc=3380)
0.125 = coord(1/8)
- Abstract
- In April 2010, Bill Gates gave a talk at MIT in which he asked: 'are the brightest minds working on the most important problems?' Gates meant improving the lives of the poorest; improving education, health, and nutrition. We could easily add improving peaceful interactions, human rights, environmental conditions, living standards and so on. Philosophy of Information (PI) proponents think that Gates has a point - but this doesn't mean we should all give up philosophy. Philosophy can be part of this project, because philosophy understood as conceptual design forges and refines the new ideas, theories, and perspectives that we need to understand and address these important problems that press us so urgently. Of course, this naturally invites us to wonder which ideas, theories, and perspectives philosophers should be designing now. In our global information society, many crucial challenges are linked to information and communication technologies: the constant search for novel solutions and improvements demands, in turn, changing conceptual resources to understand and cope with them. Rapid technological development now pervades communication, education, work, entertainment, industrial production and business, healthcare, social relations and armed conflicts. There is a rich mine of philosophical work to do on the new concepts created right here, right now.
Philosophy "done informationally" has been around a long time, but PI as a discipline is quite new. PI takes age-old philosophical debates and engages them with up-to-the minute conceptual issues generated by our ever-changing, information-laden world. This alters the philosophical debates, and makes them interesting to many more people - including many philosophically-minded people who aren't subscribing philosophers. We, the authors, are young researchers who think of our work as part of PI, taking this engaged approach. We're excited by it and want to teach it. Students are excited by it and want to study it. Writing a traditional textbook takes a while, and PI is moving quickly. A traditional textbook doesn't seem like the right approach for the philosophy of the information age. So we got together to take a new approach, team-writing this electronic text to make it available more rapidly and openly.
