Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction

by Luciano Floridi

Philosophy and Computing explores each of the following areas of the digital revolution; the computer; the Internet and the Web; CD-ROMs and Mulitmedia; databases, textbases, and hypertexts; Artificial Intelligence; the future of computing.
Luciano Floridi shows us how the relationship between philosophy and computing provokes a wide range of philosophical is there a philosophy of information? What can be achieved by a classic computer? How can we define complexity? What are the limits of quantam computers? Is the Internet an intellectual space or a polluted environment? What is the paradox in the Strong Artificial Intlligence program?
Philosophy and Computing is essential reading for anyone wishing to fully understand both the development and history of information and communication technology as well as the philosophical issues it ultimately raises.

Genres: Philosophy, Computers, Science

256 pages, 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.