Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction

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 Computingoutlines what the future philosophy of information will need to undertake.

Luciano Floridi is research fellow at Wolfson College and Lecturer in philosophy at Jesus College, Oxford University

Preface

ix

Divide et computa: philosophy and the digital environment

1

(19)

The digital revolution

1

(3)

The four areas of the digital revolution

4

(5)

From the analogue to the digital: the new physics of knowledge

9

(5)

The digitisation of the infosphere: three steps

14

(1)

The relations between philosophy and computing

15

(5)

The digital workshop

20

(36)

From the laboratory to the house

20

(1)

What is a computer?

21

(26)

Programming languages and software

47

(3)

Types of commercial computers

50

(1)

The personal computer

51

(5)

A revolution called Internet

56

(32)

The Internet as a basic technological change

56

(5)

What is the Internet?

61

(6)

What can the Internet be used for?

67

(12)

The future of the human encyclopaedia in the third age of IT: Frankenstein or Pygmalion?

79

(9)

The digital domain: infosphere, databases and hypertexts

88

(44)

The Paradox of the growth of knowledge: from the chicken and the egg to the needle in a haystack

88

(9)

``Everything must be transformed into an Encyclopaedia'' (Novalis)

97

(2)

What is a database system?

99

(3)

Types of database systems

102

(4)

Data, information and knowledge: an erotetic approach

106

(2)

The hyperbolic space of the infosphere and the fifth element

108

(2)

The aesthetic and the ontological interpretation of databases

110

(1)

Ideometry

111

(2)

The commodification of information and the growth of the infosphere

113

(1)

Rich and poor in the information economy

114

(2)

ICT practical problems and computer ethics

116

(1)

Textual analysis: a constructionist approach

116

(1)

Hypertext as information retrieval system

117

(13)

Conclusion: a Renaissance mind?

130

(2)

Artificial intelligence: a light approach

132

(92)

GOFAI

132

(2)

Turing's Test

134

(2)

Four limits of Turing's Test

136

(6)

The application-areas of AI

142

(4)

The conditions of possibility of AI and the paradox of GOFAI

146

(2)

From GOFAI to LAI

148

(2)

The Cartesian nature of LAI

150

(1)

Deep Blue: a Cartesian computer

151

(3)

The success of LAI

154

(61)

The limits of LAI

215

(3)

Conclusion

218

(6)

Notes

224

(3)

Bibliography

227

(11)

Index

238

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Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials