Evaluating Information Technologies Against the Criteria of Autonomous Control and the Enhancement of Self Esteem as Integral Features of Collaborative Content Creation
When is a Book a Book?
Ever since Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have discussed the issue of what defines an object. What is it? And what is it for?
So, to take an apparently simple example, it is much more difficult than we think to define a concept like a book. We might talk about its usual shape but that would leave out biblical scrolls with such titles as "The Book of Ezekiel" and other such which collectively comprise The Bible, colloquially referred to as "The Good Book". We might want to rule out the idea of a "Song book" available only on CD and we might have a problem with the sheath of bits of paper which comprises the "Book" of a turf accountant. On the other hand, we might want to include all these definitions and simply classify a book as a consciously ordered, physically available, piece of intellectual enterprise; which leads us to even more difficult issues, such as whether what it is and what makes it what it is are co-terminal; is a book a book wherever it is; is anything, even a rock, the same wherever it is? Or are there some cultural factors we need to take account of in discussing the essence of an object, what it is? The answer of course is that objects are considered in their context; a rock amongst rocks is a quite different proposition from a solo rock set in a bog; the first is more or less insignificant, the second is anomalous and peculiarly useful.
As to what something is, whether this differs from the maker's intention, you only have to think of a guide book's second most important function, that of supporting a table leg in a paved patio to stop your wine glass falling over; or its third use as a door stop once you get home and it becomes out of date.
I make these remarks as an introduction because it is important that we don't fall into the trap of ignoring two thousand years of philosophical enquiry with the idea that something as apparently simple as this is obvious.
What I want to do in this lecture is to explore the purpose of objects, to see how these purposes give rise to ethical considerations and then to proceed from that broad discussion into one focused on information technology systems. In the final session I want to suggest that as ICT objects are produced for a social world, they must be designed to fulfil a social function and that, because this area is currently problematic, ICT industries need to consider the ethics of what they do.