 | This article includes alist of references,related reading, orexternal links,but its sources remain unclear because it lacksinline citations. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(March 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Information science |
|---|
| General aspects |
| Related fields and subfields |
Thephilosophy of information (PI) is a branch ofphilosophy that studies topics relevant toinformation processing, representational system and consciousness,cognitive science,computer science,information science andinformation technology.
It includes:
The philosophy of information (PI) has evolved from thephilosophy of artificial intelligence,logic of information,cybernetics,social theory,ethics and the study of language and information.
Thelogic of information, also known as thelogical theory of information, considers the information content of logicalsigns and expressions along the lines initially developed byCharles Sanders Peirce.
Later contributions to the field were made byFred Dretske,Jon Barwise,Brian Cantwell Smith, and others.
TheCenter for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) was founded at Stanford University in 1983 by philosophers, computer scientists, linguists, and psychologists, under the direction ofJohn Perry andJon Barwise.
More recently this field has become known as the philosophy of information. The expression was coined in the 1990s byLuciano Floridi, who has published prolifically in this area with the intention of elaborating a unified and coherent, conceptual frame for the whole subject.[2]
The conceptinformation has been defined by several theorists.[3]
Charles S. Peirce's theory of information was embedded in his wider theory of symbolic communication he called thesemiotic, now a major part ofsemiotics. For Peirce, information integrates the aspects ofsigns andexpressions separately covered by the concepts ofdenotation andextension, on the one hand, and byconnotation andcomprehension on the other.
Donald M. MacKay says that information is a distinction that makes a difference.[4]
According to Luciano Floridi,[citation needed] four kinds of mutually compatible phenomena are commonly referred to as "information":
Recent creative advances and efforts incomputing, such assemantic web,ontology engineering,knowledge engineering, and modernartificial intelligence providephilosophy with fertile ideas, new and evolving subject matters, methodologies, and models for philosophical inquiry. Whilecomputer science brings new opportunities and challenges to traditional philosophical studies, and changes the ways philosophers understand foundational concepts in philosophy, further major progress incomputer science would only be feasible when philosophy provides sound foundations for areas such as bioinformatics, software engineering, knowledge engineering, and ontologies.
Classical topics in philosophy, namely,mind,consciousness,experience,reasoning,knowledge,truth,morality andcreativity are rapidly becoming common concerns and foci of investigation incomputer science, e.g., in areas such as agent computing,software agents, and intelligent mobile agent technologies.[citation needed]
According to Luciano Floridi "[5] one can think of several ways for applying computational methods towards philosophical matters:
