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The Fourth Revolution Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford)

The Fourth Revolution By Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford)

Summary

There is no aspect of our lives that is unaffected by modern information and communication technologies (ICTs). Luciano Floridi argues that we may be witnessing a 'fourth revolution', in which our perception of ourselves is altered by these information technologies, which are creating and transforming our realities.

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The Fourth Revolution Summary

The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality by Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford)

Who are we, and how do we relate to each other? Luciano Floridi, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy, argues that the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing the answer to these fundamental human questions. As the boundaries between life online and offline break down, and we become seamlessly connected to each other and surrounded by smart, responsive objects, we are all becoming integrated into an infosphere. Personas we adopt in social media, for example, feed into our 'real' lives so that we begin to live, as Floridi puts in, onlife. Following those led by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud, this metaphysical shift represents nothing less than a fourth revolution. Onlife defines more and more of our daily activity - the way we shop, work, learn, care for our health, entertain ourselves, conduct our relationships; the way we interact with the worlds of law, finance, and politics; even the way we conduct war. In every department of life, ICTs have become environmental forces which are creating and transforming our realities. How can we ensure that we shall reap their benefits? What are the implicit risks? Are our technologies going to enable and empower us, or constrain us? Floridi argues that we must expand our ecological and ethical approach to cover both natural and man-made realities, putting the 'e' in an environmentalism that can deal successfully with the new challenges posed by our digital technologies and information society.

The Fourth Revolution Reviews

hugely well-informed and well-written book * David Lorimer, Network Review *
[H]e widens the high-tech horizon * Peter Day, BBC News Online *
searing studyNon-alarmist and very, very smart * Barbara Keiser, Nature *
Fascinating stuff. * Douglas Heaven, New Scientist *

About Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford)

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 Gottingen, 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 Ethics of Information (OUP, 2013), The Philosophy of Information (OUP, 2011), Information: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2010), and The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics (CUP, 2010).

Table of Contents

Preface ; Acknowledgements ; List of figures ; 1. Hyperhistory ; 2. Space: Infosphere ; 3. Identity: Onlife ; 4. Self-Understanding: The Four Revolutions ; 5. Privacy: Informational Friction ; 6. Intelligence: Inscribing the World ; 7. Agency: Enveloping the World ; 8. Politics: The Rise of the Multi-Agent System ; 9. Environment: The Digital Gambit ; 10. Ethics: E-nvironmentalism ; Further Reading ; References ; Endnotes ; Index

Additional information

CIN0199606722G
9780199606726
0199606722
The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality by Luciano Floridi (Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford)
Used - Good
Hardback
Oxford University Press
20140626
272
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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