You are cordially invited for a Public NIAS-Lorentz Center Lecture by
Luciano Floridi
(Hertfordshire-Oxford)
‘Bodies of Information -- e-Health
and Its Philosophical Implication’
on Wednesday February 10, 2010, at 16.30h
in the ‘Academiegebouw’ of Leiden
University, Rapenburg 73, Leiden.
The lecture will be followed by a reception, at 17.30h.
The Academiegebouw is within walking
distance from Leiden Central Station, see also http://www.bezoekers.leidenuniv.nl/locaties/academiegebouw.html.
For further information, visit the
following websites: http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/ or http://www.nias.nl/
, or contact Mieke Schutte,
Abstract. Luciano Floridi will give his interpretation of the information turn as a fourth revolution. Humans are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernican revolution); they are not unnaturally detached and diverse from the rest of the animal world (Darwinian revolution); and they are not Cartesian subjects entirely transparent to themselves (Freudian revolution). We are now coming to understand humans not as disconnected entities but, rather, as informational organisms. Together with biological agents and engineering artifacts, we share a global environment ultimately consisting of information: the infosphere (Turing revolution).
Luciano Floridi will use the framework provided by these four revolutions to draw the development of e-Health and its ethical issues. The Turing revolution is increasingly affecting our views on human nature, its fragility and resilience, its health (including mental health), and how we may shape it and make it flourish. We shall see how human bodies may be interpreted informationally and what this implies, in the future and in terms of human well-being.
The Speaker. Luciano Floridi is Research Chair in the
Philosophy of Information at the Universities of
Hertfordshire and
Luciano Floridi approaches the philosophy of information from two perspectives: the theoretical perspective provided by logic and epistemology and the technical perspective provided by computer science, IT and Humanities Computing. He is one of the most influential thinkers in this field. Luciano Floridi is author of numerous papers and books, including: Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction (1999); The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information (2003); The Philosophy of Information (2010); and Information - A Very Short Introduction (2010). Luciano Floridi was the first philosopher to be awarded the Gauss Professorship by the Goettingen Academy of Sciences, in 2008. In 2009 he was awarded the Barwise Prize of the American Philosophical Association and was elected Fellow of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. Luciano Floridi is President of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy.
NIAS
/ Lorentz Center. The public lecture is part of the scientific
workshop "The Philosophy of the Information and Computing Sciences"
at the