The Philosophy of Information

Luciano Floridi presents a book that will set the agenda for the philosophy of information. PI is the philosophical field concerned with (1) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation, and sciences, and (2) the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. This book lays down, for the first time, the conceptual foundations for this new area of research. It does so systematically, by pursuing three goals. Its metatheoretical goal is to describe what the philosophy of information is, its problems, approaches, and methods. Its introductory goal is to help the reader to gain a better grasp of the complex and multifarious nature of the various concepts and phenomena related to information. Its analytic goal is to answer several key theoretical questions of great philosophical interest, arising from the investigation of semantic information.

1 - What is the Philosophy of Information?
2 - Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information
3 - The Method of Levels of Abstraction
4 - Semantic Information and the Veridicality Thesis
5 - Outline of a Theory of Strongly Semantic Information
6 - The Symbol Grounding Problem
7 - Action-Based Semantics
8 - Semantic Information and the Correctness Theory of Truth
9 - The Logical Unsolvability of the Gettier Problem
10 - The Logic of Being Informed
11 - Understanding Epistemic Relevance
12 - Semantic Information and the Network Theory of Account
13 - Consciousness, Agents and the Knowledge Game
14 - Against Digital Ontology
15 - A Defence of Informational Structural Realism

Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. Among his recognitions, he has been appointed the Gauss Professor by the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, and is recipient of the APA's Barwise Prize, the IACAP's Covey Award, and the INSEIT's Weizenbaum Award. He is an AISB and BCS Fellow, Editor in Chief of Philosophy & Technology and of the Synthese Library, and was Chairman of EU Commission's 'Onlife' research group. His most recent books are: The Philosophy of Information (OUP, 2011), Information: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2010), and The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics (CUP, 2010).