Program

The conference will start at October 3rd, 2008 9.00 am. The conference will end at Saturday October 4th, 2008 4.00 pm.

Top Keynotes

The following keynote presentations will be discussed by acknowledged experts during the conference.

Top 1. Ontology

Perhaps the most important area of debate at the interface of philosophy and information science revolves around the topic of ontology. In information and computer science, ontologies are artifacts used to classify, organize and to structure data and information. In the philosophical context, and as according to Aristotle, ontology is the theory of the kinds of entities which exist and of the relations between them. To what degree can these two approaches be reconciled? To what degree ought they to be reconciled?

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Barry Smith
Prof. Dr. Barry Smith is Julian Park Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo (USA) and former Director of the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science in Saarbrücken, Germany.

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/

Top 2. Philosophy of Computing and Information

Introducing his field of research, Luciani Floridi will talk about the philosophy of computing and information and of an ontocentric ethics, based on the concept of the “infosphere”. Information can be conceived of in many ways, just as can the idea of “being”, as Aristotle points out in his Metaphysics. Far-reaching consequences trace back to this concept, changing not only our view of “being as being informed“, but also in regard of the recipients of action.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Luciano Floridi
Floridi is fellow at St. Cross College, University of Oxford and holds the Research Chair in Philosophy of Information at the University of Hertfordshire. He is the Coordinator of the GPI, the research Group on Philosophy of Information at the University of Hertfordshire and director of the IEG, The Interdepartmental Research Group on the Philosophy of Information at the University of Oxford. He is co-founder of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT), which organizes the annual international conference CEPE, Computer Ethics Philosophical Enquiries. During the academic year 2008-09 Floridi is the elected Gauss Professor at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, in recognition of his work on the philosophy of information.

http://www.philosophyofinformation.net

Top 3. Complexity and System Theory

Humans are not only complex and sometimes complicated beings, but they are also complex systems. So what is a system? If we use the word “system”, we probably think of entities like the solar system, an ecosystem or a computer system. All these systems have something in common: a certain level of complexity. These levels of complexity vary from simple to (apparently) out of our grasp. What is meant when we say that a system behaves in a distinct way and that different patterns emerge by doing so?

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Klaus Mainzer
Klaus Mainzer, Professor for Foundations and History of Exact Sciences at the University of Konstanz and Director of the Institute of Philosophy and the Interdisciplinary Institute of Informatics at the University of Augsburg, member of several national and international academies and President of the German Society of Complex Systems and Nonlinear Dynamics . He was appointed in 2008 professor (chair) for philosoophy of science and director of the Carl von Linde Akademie at the Technical University Munich.

http://www.cvl-a.tum.de/mainzer1.html

Top 4. Info-computationalism

Info-computationalism is a scientific concept that holds the view that the physical universe can be understood best as a computational process operating with an informational structure. According to this view, the universe is conceived of as one gigantic computer which continuously computes its next states by following physical laws. Within this framework, everything is info-computationalistic.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
Prof. Dr. Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic received her PhD in Theoretical Physics at the University of Zagreb in 1998 and her PhD in Computer Sciences at the Mälardalen University, Sweden in 2006. She served as General Chair and organizer of International Computing and Philosophy Conference E-CAP 2005.

http://www.idt.mdh.se/~gdc

Top 5. Action Theory in Knowledge Representation

New community platforms are based on the cooperation and exchange of documents and knowledge; virtual “knowledge spaces“ are created, where users can interact. Apart from pointing out different modes of communication, philosophy is interested in analyzing those aspects of action which arise from the fact that they occur in such larger systems. To describe and understand the exchange of knowledge in these systems, we need to know what cooperation is and how it works. The naturalistic concept of information is contrasted by its cultural definition, which emphasizes the social context of human action as a basic constituent of our understanding of information.

Speaker:

Top 6. Theory of Knowledge Representation

Knowledge representation and reasoning requires philosophical understanding for different reasons. It is required for the various schemes for representing knowledge in a computer; representing and reasoning over information include cognitive attitudes, central to agents. Furthermore a deep understanding of not only deductive reasoning, but also inductive, abductive, analogical, and visual reasoning is also provided by philosophy and logic.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Selmer Bringsjord
Selmer Bringsjord is the chair of the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is also a professor of Logic, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science. He conducts research in Artificial Intelligence as the director of the Rensselaer AI & Reasoning Lab (RAIR).

http://www.rpi.edu/~brings

Top 7. Theory of Science

In the last thirty years, the awareness of social issues has grown considerably. Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Critical social theory have become integrated parts in the discussion.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Francis C. Dane
Francis Dane holds the James V. Finkbeiner Endowed Chair in Ethics at the Saginaw Valley State University as well as teaching as Community Professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Mercer University School of Medicine since 2005.

http://www.svsu.edu/abs/about-us/endowe-chair.html

Top Invited Speakers

• Selmer Bringsjord
  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
  http://www.rpi.edu/~brings
• Francis C. Dane
  Saginaw Valley State University
  http://www.svsu.edu/abs/about-us/endowe-chair.html
• Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
  School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Sweden
  http://www.idt.mdh.se/~gdc
• Luciano Floridi
  University of Oxford, University of Hertfordshire, England
  http://www.philosophyofinformation.net
• Barbara Inge Karsch
  Microsoft Corporation, USA
  http://www.microsoft.com/language/default.mspx
• Reinhard Keil
  University of Paderborn, Germany
  http://wwwhni.uni-paderborn.de/iug/mitarbeiter/rks/
• Klaus Mainzer
  Carl von Linde-Akademie, TU München, Germany
  http://www.cvl-a.tum.de/mainzer1.html
• Vincent C. Müller
  Anatolia College/ACT, Greece
  http://www.typos.de
• Bernd Radig
  Technical University Munich, Germany
  http://wwwradig.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/people/radig/
• Uwe Riss
  SAP Research Center CEC Karlsruhe, Germany
  http://www.sap.com
• Thomas Roth-Berghofer
  DFKI Kaiserslautern
  http://thomas.roth-berghofer.de/
• Barry Smith
  SUNY Buffalo, USA
  http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith

Top Social Event