The 4th Revolution: How the Infosphere Is Reshaping Human Reality

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) are 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.


Author: Luciano Floridi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 09/01/2014
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780199606726
ISBN10: 0199606722
BISAC Categories:
- Technology & Engineering | Social Aspects
- Computers | Social Aspects
- Computers | Information Technology

About the Author

Luciano Floridi, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire

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