Philosophy of Information

This course examines information as a fundamental dimension of the visual society, where digitization, the dominance of the image, and algorithmic mediation are transforming human experience. It explores the visualization of life, hybrid reality, inflationary freedom, and the constitution of the subject within environments of digital data, algorithmic networks, and artificial intelligence. Particular emphasis is placed on the risks of iconocracy and algorithmic rule, as well as on the preservation, expansion, and deepening of autonomy in the digital context.

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to:

1. distinguish between the concepts of information, knowledge, meaning, and representation, and understand their different philosophical uses;
2. examine the ways in which digitalisation transforms the production, storage, circulation, and reception of images, sounds, and texts;
3. analyse the constitution of the iconistic subject and the relationship between self-image, recognition, attention, and informational mediation;
4. understand the contradictory experience of inflationary freedom and explain how the multiplication of information and choices may be accompanied by new forms of constraint;
5. examine the effects of constant connectivity and algorithmic classification on privacy, the public sphere, intimacy, and human autonomy;
6. analyse images, films, sound works, and other audiovisual objects as forms of organising and transmitting information, rather than merely as illustrations of philosophical positions;
7. investigate the political significance of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, by asking who produces, selects, and controls the information that becomes available;
8. read a philosophical text attentively, reconstruct its argument, formulate well-grounded objections, and relate philosophical analysis to their own experience of the informational condition.

The course takes as its point of departure the question of what information is. It examines the distinctions between information, knowledge, and meaning, as well as the transition from information understood as message to information understood as a mode of organising and representing reality. Digitalisation is approached both as a technical transformation and as a transformation of the ways in which we perceive, remember, and communicate.

The discussion then moves to the iconistic society. The relationship between life, bios, meaning, and image is examined alongside the digitalisation of image and sound, the interpenetration of physical and digital reality, and the constitution of the iconistic subject. Self-image acquires a relative autonomy, while the quest for recognition becomes connected to the care and management of one’s digital self-image.

Particular emphasis is placed on inflationary freedom, information overload, and constant connectivity. The course explores how the increase in available choices may coexist with difficulties of orientation and commitment, as well as how the attention economy, social media, and algorithmic selection of information transform our relationship to time, space, the body, others, and the self.

The care of the self is examined as an exercise of autonomy within the informational condition. Suffering, melancholy, anger, power, time, and mortality make it possible to ask how a subject may reflectively shape life into a bios while being simultaneously called upon to produce, consume, and ceaselessly manage information and images of the self.

The course concludes with the political dimension of information. Who determines what becomes visible, audible, and accessible? How is information transformed into knowledge, prediction, and power? Which forms of invisibility and silence are necessary for a democratic society? The relationship between self-government and democracy is examined from the perspective of the possibility not merely of protecting autonomy, but of expanding and deepening it.

Core Bibliography

Tasis, Theofanis, Politics of Life II: Care of the Self in the Imagistic Society, Athens: Armos, 2017.

Supplementary Bibliography

Floridi, Luciano, The Philosophy of Information, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Shannon, Claude E. & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, University of Illinois Press.
Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, MIT Press.
Flusser, Vilém, Into the Universe of Technical Images, University of Minnesota Press.
Kittler, Friedrich, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford University Press.
Manovich, Lev, The Language of New Media, MIT Press, 2001.

Indicative Audiovisual Material

The Conversation (1974), Francis Ford Coppola — sound recording, surveillance, interpretation, and the gap between information and meaning.

Blow-Up (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni — image, evidence, magnification, and the limits of visual information.

Blow Out (1981), Brian De Palma — the relationship between auditory and visual information and the construction of an event through technical recording.

Minority Report (2002), Steven Spielberg — information, prediction, algorithmic governance, and freedom.

The course is organised around the reading of the core text in class. Reading proceeds through pauses for the clarification of concepts, the reconstruction of arguments, and the examination of questions generated by the text itself. Students participate in both the reading and the discussion, having studied the relevant section in advance.

Short introductory presentations by the instructor provide the necessary philosophical and historical context. At the same time, images, photographs, film scenes, sound works, musical compositions, digital interfaces, and other audiovisual objects are examined. They are used both to illustrate theoretical positions and, at the same time, as autonomous objects of philosophical analysis.

Reading aloud functions as an exercise in attention and listening. It allows us to follow thought as it unfolds, to dwell on a difficulty, and to return to a formulation that we may initially have taken for granted. Similarly, attentive viewing and listening cultivate the capacity to discern what an image or a sound communicates, what it conceals, and what it requires of the viewer or listener in order to acquire meaning.

The course’s online platform is used to announce required preparation, distribute texts and audiovisual material, submit brief comments, and facilitate communication. Digital image and sound archives, films, audio recordings, digital platforms, and generative artificial intelligence systems are used in class.

Digital media are simultaneously tools and objects of study. The course examines how information is selected, transformed, and endowed with meaning through different media, as well as the point at which technical mediation expands perception and the point at which it fragments attention or substitutes for judgement and conversation.

Assessment consists of three components:

1. Continuous Preparation and Active Participation in Class (25%)

Students are assessed on their preparation of the assigned texts, substantive participation in discussions, their ability to formulate questions and objections, their contribution to the analysis of films and television episodes, and their capacity to respond to the arguments of others. Participation is not equated with the frequency or length of interventions. Greater weight is given to attentive reading, precision, substantiation, and contribution to the shared exploration of a problem.

2. In-class Presentation (25%)

Students present, individually or in small groups, a text or topic connected to the central concerns of the course. The presentation aims to bring out the central question, principal thesis, and development of the argument, to clarify the key concepts and, above all, to formulate a question capable of opening up discussion in class. What is assessed is not rhetorical display or mere summary, but understanding, conceptual precision, clarity, and the capacity for philosophical dialogue.

3. Final Examination (50%)

The final examination covers the texts, concepts, films, television episodes, and problems discussed during the semester. Students are asked to reconstruct arguments, compare different positions, examine objections, and apply the concepts of the course to manifestations of imagistic reality. The examination does not aim at the mere reproduction of information, but at judgement, argumentation, and the ability to relate theory to the problem under examination.

Assessment Criteria

Across all components of assessment, consideration is given to the understanding of texts, precision in the use of concepts, clarity and coherence of argumentation, the ability to formulate and address objections, the connection between philosophical theory and contemporary phenomena and, above all, autonomy of judgement.

Policy on the Use of Generative AI

The use of generative artificial intelligence is permitted as a supporting tool for brainstorming, developing keywords, working on the structure of an assignment, language editing, translation, and testing possible objections. It may not, however, replace the reading of primary texts, the formulation of the question, personal argumentation, or the writing of substantial parts of an assignment.

Any use of generative AI must be clearly disclosed. Responsibility for the accuracy of information, the sources used, and the final argument remains entirely with the student.