The Road to the Philosophy of Information

Abstract

There are places, like the small village where I live, that are difficult to find. They lay in remote locations, not well indicated on the map, few people have ever heard of them, and hardly anyone can tell you how to get there. There are places, like the university where I work, which are difficult to reach. They are so big that, if you are driving following a GPS, their postcodes actually take you miles away from the campus, to a mail deposit. Sometimes, I fear that the philosophy of information that I have been working on combines the geographical problems of my home and working places: difficult to find and hard to reach. This is why the invitation to contribute to this volume is not only a great honour, of which I am fully aware, but also a very welcome opportunity, for which I am deeply grateful. For it allows me to map some less tortuous paths that, if followed, should help the reader to get to the philosophy of information that I have in mind, and alert the same reader to some wrong turns, potential pitfalls and misleading road signs that have side-tracked more than a fellow traveller. Of course, being able to indicate more clearly how to reach a place does not mean that the place itself is worth visiting. I believe that the philosophy of information is the philosophy of our time properly conceptualised for our time, but then you might expect this level of commitment on my side. I also hope that the journey to reach it will be rewarding, but on this I can only rely on the traveller’s experience. What I may say is that the view from here is very interesting and shows an immense conceptual space still virgin. If you join me, you will see.