An 'Aristotelian' Philosophy of the Internet (original) (raw)
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Proposal for a philosophy of the Internet
Журнал Белорусского государственного университета. Философия. Психология / Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 2021
The paper argues for the necessity of building up a philosophy of the Internet and proposes a version of it, an «Aristotelian» philosophy of the Internet. First, an overview of the recent trends in the Internet research is presented. This train of thoughts leads to a proposal of understanding the nature of the Internet in the spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy i. e., to conceive the Internet as the Internet, as a totality of its all aspects, as a whole entity. For this purpose, the Internet is explained in four (easily distinguishable, but obviously connected) contexts: we regard it as a system of technology, as an element of communication, as a cultural medium and as an independent organism. Based on these investigations we conclude that the Internet is the medium of a new mode of human existence created by late modern man; a mode that is built on earlier (i. e., natural, and social) spheres of existence and yet it is markedly different from them. We call this newly formed existence web-life. Finally using two enlightening cultural-historical analogies (the reformation of knowledge and the formation of web-life) several fundamental characteristics of the web-life is presented
Toward a Philosophy of the Internet
APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, 2018
The appearance and the extended use of the internet can probably be considered as the most significant development of the twentieth century. However, this becomes evident if and only if the internet is not simply conceived as a network of interconnected computers or a new communication tool, but as a new, highly complex artificial being with a mostly unknown nature. An unavoidable task of our age is to use, shape, and, in general, discover it—and to interpret our praxis, to study and understand the internet, including all the things, relations, and processes contributing to its nature and use
tripleC-Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 2010
We propose to build up a philosophy of the Internet instead of building up its scientific theory. Our philosophy of the Internet includes several components of the philosophy of technology, information, communication, culture and organization because we use four different coexisting contexts for the better understanding of the nature of the Internet: the technological, the communication, the cultural and the organism ones. This philosophy of the Internet shows that the Internet is the sphere of a new mode of human existence, basically independent from, but built on and coexisting with the former (natural and societal) spheres of existence, and created by the late-modern humans. , human existence man aims: to build up a specific community. Every element of the human communities and the community itself are created by communication. Communication via Internet is a technology of building up virtual, open, extended communities. A deeper understanding of the communication via Internet is based on a communication situation analysis, including considerations on the active role of the media, the specificity of computers as communication machine, and the possibility of the highest level of individual control of the situation. From communication point of view the Internet is an intentionally created and maintained network of artificial, extended, virtual communities which are based on networked communication machines and individual human control over the communication situations.
The Internet - A new communicational Infrastructure CFI 2001
By situating the Internet within the general history of media, the paper aims at a characterization of the general properties of the Internet. First, a general model of the five most significant matrices of media in the history of mankind is presented and discussed. Second, the paper addresses some of the issues arising from the interrelationships between media in a given matrix as well as the transition from one matrix into another. Third, the paper presents various definitions and approaches to the analysis of the Internet; and finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of properties constituting the Internet as a narrative and discursive space.
The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet
SOCRATES, 2016
Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the 'mechanization' of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize 1 , even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late '60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata 2. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The emergence of the worldwide web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities. Abstract Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the 'mechanization' of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize 1 , even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late '60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata 2. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The emergence of the worldwide web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities.
Cyberspace as a New Existential Dimension of Man
Cyberspace [Working Title], 2019
Since the second half of the twentieth century, especially from the 1990s to the present, we have seen significant sociocultural changes that have mostly been influenced by information technology. In the area of information technology, it is mainly the Internet that is the essential part of all modern communication technologies such as smartphones, iPads, and so on. The Internet is a new communication space, also called cyberspace, in which we not only communicate but also work, learn, buy, have fun, and so on. It does not seem to be a mere "tool" of our new way of communication, but a dimension that becomes part of our existence. We then have to ask how our existence is changing under the influence of new technologies. How do we change the value system in cyberspace communication? What are the possibilities and risks of communication in cyberspace? These are just some of the issues that arise in connection with communication in cyberspace to which we will seek answers. In the chapter we use the phenomenological and hermeneutic method. Through the phenomenological method, we examine the basic structure of cyberspace (Clark, Ropolyi) and, using a hermeneutic method, examine the differences between communication in cyberspace and old media (Lohisse, Postman, Bystřický).
The Internet as a Driving Force of the Development of Civilization
Problems of Information Society
The article analyzes new realities, global and virtual relations generated by the Internet in modern society. Qualitative changes occurred with the influence of the Internet on all spheres of human activity and the emerged opportunities are commented. Moreover, the perspective development directions of the Internet and the existing threats are specified in the article.