Philosophy and Computing

by Luciano Floridi

This accessible book explores the development, history and future of Information and Communication Technology using examples from philosophy. Luciano Floridi offers both an introduction to these technologies and a philosophical analysis of the problems they pose.
The book examines a wide range of areas of technology, including the digital revolution, the Web and Internet, Artificial Intelligence and CD-ROMS. We see how the relationship between philosophy and computing provokes many crucial philosophical questions. Ultimately, "Philosophy and Computing" outlines what the future philosophy of information will need to undertake.

Genres: Philosophy, Computers, Science

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Luciano Floridi is currently Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute, Governing Body Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, Senior Member of the Faculty of Philosophy, Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.

Floridi is best known for his work on two areas of philosophical research: the philosophy of information and information ethics.

Between 2008 and 2013, he held the Research Chair in philosophy of information and the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics at the University of Hertfordshire. He was the founder and director of the IEG, an interdepartmental research group on the philosophy of information at the University of Oxford, and of the GPI, the research Group in Philosophy of Information at the University of Hertfordshire. He was the founder and director of the SWIF, the Italian e-journal of philosophy (1995–2008).

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whistle-stop hyperbole in the way of Continentals, but grounded by technical knowledge and uncliched. (Owing to its techno-optimism: it is uncliched to be a philosopher optimistic about tech.)

The history of modern thought has been characterised by an increasing gap between mind and reality. It is a process of epistemic detachment which has been irresistible ever since it began, and quite inevitably so. Knowledge develops as mind’s answer to the presence of the non-mental. It is the means whereby the subject establishes a minimal distance, and emancipates itself, from the object. The rise of dualism and the escalating interaction between traditional knowledge, as an object, and innovative knowledge, as a further reaction to it, has led to the emergence of a new world.

Notice the skilled and non-fatuous use of phenomenological blah! Chapter 2, his fast and very formal discussion of Boole, Gödel and Turing, took me about half a week. The tiny concluding chapter – in which he locates computers in the history of human freedom, as Hephaestean handmaids – makes me giddy. Slightly dated where it talks PC specs, and he loves a goofy neologism (“egology”, “corporeal membranes”), but grand, sceptical, grand, supervenient.


(His ‘Informational Nature of Personal Identity’ and ‘Turing’s Three Lessons’ are better.)

[Masatoshi Nishimura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Throughout the book, I couldn't find what he was trying to claim. Somewhat ambiguous. Including the Kurzweil's "Singularity is Near", there're are other books that are more understandable in philosophy/implication of computation.