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Philosophy Of Information




PI is based on the work of Norbert Wiener , Alan Turing , William Ross Ashby , Claude Shannon , Warren Weaver and many other scientists working on computing and information theory back in the early 1950s, and then, later, on the work of Fred Dretske , Jon Barwise , Brian Cantwell Smith and others.

PI was finally established as an independent field of research in the 1990s by Luciano Floridi , apparently the first to use the expression ''philosophy of information'' in the technical sense expressed by the definition above and to elaborate a unified and coherent, conceptual frame for the whole subject.


DEFINING INFORMATION

No universal definition of "information" itself has become possible yet. Depending on the context, different phenomena get called "information." Three kinds of phenomena are commonly referred to as "information":
  • Information as a cognitive process;

  • Information as knowledge imparted;

  • Signifying objects (data, documents, and the like) are commonly referred to as "information."

  • Further, the word "information" is commonly used so metaphorically or so abstractly that the meaning is unclear.


Rather than being important in itself, information becomes so because of its relationship to knowledge. As . He did not say, "Information is power." Knowledge is power, because "Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destuit effectum." (Human knowledge and human power meet in one, because where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.) Knowledge is empowering. Information, then, can be indirectly empowering to the extent to which knowledge is derived from it.


COMPUTING AND PHILOSOPHY

Recent creative advances and efforts in Computing , such as Semantic Web , Ontology Engineering , Knowledge Engineering , and modern Artificial Intelligence provide Philosophy with fertile notions, new and evolving subject matters, methodologies, and models for philosophical inquiry. While Computing Science brings new opportunities and challenges to traditional philosophical studies, and changes the ways philosophers understand foundational concepts in philosophy, further major progress in computer science would only be feasible when philosophy provides sound foundations for areas such as bioinformatics, software engineering, knowledge engineering, and ontologies.

Classical themes of philosophy, namely, Mind , Consciousness , Experience , Reasoning , Knowledge , Truth , Ethics and Creativity are rapidly becoming common concerns and foci of investigation in computing science (e.g., in areas such as agent computing, Software Agents , and intelligent mobile agent technologies) as well.


SEE ALSO



EXTERNAL LINKS

  • {Link without Title} PI website

  • {Link without Title} Luciano Floridi , ''What is the Philosophy of Information?'', ''Metaphilosophy'', 33.1/2, 123-145. Reprinted in T.W. Bynum and J.H. Moor (eds.), ''CyberPhilosophy: The Intersection of Philosophy and Computing'' (Oxford – New York: Blackwell, 2003).

  • [http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/pdf/oppi.pdf] Luciano Floridi , ''Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information'', , ''Metaphilosophy'' 35.4, 554-582. Revised version of ''The Herbert A. Simon Lecture on Computing and Philosophy'' given at Carnegie Mellon University in 2001, with [http://ethics.acusd.edu/video/CAP/CMU2001/Floridi/index.html realvideo] and powerpoint presentation .

  • {Link without Title} G.M. Greco, G. Paronitti, M. Turilli, L. Floridi, ''How to Do Philosophy Informationally'', ''Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence'', 3782, pp. 623–634, 2005.

  • {Link without Title} ''The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information'', edited by ).