FLORIDI, Luciano. The philosophy of information. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011.
David Bawden · Library and Information Research · 2012
I wouldn't have minded if he'd called it A philosophy of information", said my Distinguished Colleague, "but I do object to The bloody philosophy".Luciano Floridi has created considerable interest, and a little controversy, in the library/information community, since he began publishing on the topic a decade or so ago.Now, in this latest book, he presents what he tells us is the results of that ten years of work, in what the publisher's blurb announces a "a book that will set the agenda for the philosophy of information".Let us be clear.This is a detailed and serious book of academic philosophy.Although the audience is nowhere explicitly stated, it seems clear that Floridi, a professor of philosophy at Hertfordshire and Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, is writing for his fellow philosophers, and pulling no punches.He warns us in the preface he is "painfully aware that this is not an easy book to read, to put it mildly" (p.xiii), and will require patience and time.He politely refers anyone