Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS).
Design/methodology/approach
Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions.
Findings
Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects.
Research limitations/implications
Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS.
Originality/value
The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas.
Recent and emerging viewpoints in embodiment and knowledge necessitate a reexamination of epistemology within and beyond the brain. Taking a sociocultural approach, this article covers two main types of epistemology beyond the brain, namely, embodied epistemology and nonindividualist epistemology. Using citizen science and music to illustrate related concepts of intuition, experience, and embodiment, this article describes intuition as a cultural system, beyond a purely individual possession. We describe how-in cultural practices such as musicintuition acts as mediator between knowledge and embodiment, and intuition is built and modified by experience over time. Building on Dick's (1999) notion of "holistic perspectivism," we pose a holistic epistemology approach that embraces knowledge that extends well beyond the purely cognitive, in both embodied situations and systemic manifestations. As information research becomes increasingly interested in the role of the body and its relationship to information, knowledge, intuition, and memory, we argue that such an approach will uncover further dimensions of nonindividualist, systemic, and embodied knowledge.
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