%0 Book %D 2013 %T The Philosophy of Information; An Introduction %A Phyllis Illari %A Eric Kerr %A Orlin Vakarelov %A Mariarosaria Taddeo %A Hector Zenil %A Federica Russo %A Federico Gobbo %A Matteo Turilli %A Carson Grubaugh %A Giuseppe Primiero %A Andrew Iliadis %A Christoph Schulz %A Patrick Allo %A Bert Baumgaertner %A Simon D’Alfonso %A Nir Fresco %X

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 everchanging, 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.

%I The Π Research Network %P 220 %8 11/2013 %G EN %U http://socphilinfo.org/news/teaching/412-philosophy-information-introduction-new-extended-version %M 9723