Luciano Floridi‘s research areas are the philosophy of Information, information and computer ethics, and the philosophy of technology.

email: luciano.floridi@oii.ox.ac.uk

tel: +44 (0)1865 287202

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Luciano Floridi is the OII’s Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information. In Oxford, he is also Fellow of St Cross College; Distinguished Research Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics; Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy at the Department of Computer Science; and Member of the Faculty of Philosophy. Outside Oxford, he is Adjunct Professor (“Distinguished Scholar in Residence”) of the Department of Economics, American University, Washington D.C.

Before joining the OII, Floridi was UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics and Research Chair in Philosophy of Information at the University of Hertfordshire; Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Università degli Studi di Bari; Markle Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Information Policy, Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, University of Oxford; Francis Yates Fellow of the Warburg Institute, University of London; Junior Research Fellow and then Research Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford; and Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick.

Floridi’s long-term project is a tetralogy on the foundations of the philosophy of information. His most recent books are: The Fourth Revolution – How the infosphere is reshaping human reality (OUP, 2014); The Ethics of Information (OUP, 2013, vol. II of the tetralogy); The Philosophy of Information (OUP, 2011, vol. I of the tetralogy); Information – A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2010); and The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics (edited for CUP, 2010).

In terms of services to the profession, Floridi is President elect of the International Society for the Study of Information (2013-) and member of the international evaluation committee of the University of Milan (2009-). He was Chairman of the European Commission’s expert group “Concepts Engineering”, on the impact of information and communication technologies on the digital transformations occurring in the European society (2012-2013), and President of the International Association for Computing And Philosophy (2006-2010). He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy & Technology; Editor-in-Chief of the Synthese Library book series; Subject editor of Synthese (philosophy of computing and information); Associate editor of The Information Society (philosophy of information); and Member of the editorial boards of Ethics and Information Technology, Etica e Politica, International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, Minds and Machines, Philosophical Inquiries, Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, and Telematics & Informatics.

As an international speaker, he has delivered ca. three hundred talks. Recent engagements with the general public include keynotes at the Digital Agenda Annual Assembly, the Seoul Digital Forum, the Beijing Forum, the European Parliament, TED, and the World Science Festival.

Recognitions in the last five years include: Member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (MAIPS); Weizenbaum Award, by the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology, for his “significant contribution to the field of information and computer ethics, through his research, service, and vision”; Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS); Covey Award, by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy, for outstanding research in philosophy and computing; first Distinguished Scholar (adjunct professor of economics) ever nominated by American University in Washington since its foundation in 1892; laurea honoris causa by the University of Suceava, Romania, for “his groundbreaking work on the philosophy of information”; Fellow of the Center for Information Policy Research, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; University of Hertfordshire; HertfordshireVice-Chancellor Award “for research supporting engagement with business, the profession and partner organisations”; Gauss Professor by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (first philosopher elected); Barwise Prize, by the American Philosophical Association “in recognition of his research on the philosophy of information”; Fellow of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour.

Floridi is best known for his foundational research on the Philosophy of Information and Information Ethics, two new research areas that he has contributed to establish. Other research interests include the Philosophy of Technology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Logic, and the History and Philosophy of Scepticism. He has more than 150 publications in these areas, appeared in many anthologies and in peer-reviewed journals. His works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, French, Greek, Japanese, Italian, Hungarian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (Professor Floridi’s profile in Google Scholar).

Areas of Interest for Doctoral Supervision

Philosophy, activism, big data, censorship, cultural industries, power, ethics, governance, inequality, innovation, open data, privacy, security, social media, surveillance, trust

Research interests

information and computer ethics, philosophy of information, philosophy of technology

Positions held at the OII

  • Director of Research, April 2014 –
  • Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, September 2013 –

Students supervised at the OII

Current students


Latest blog posts

Current projects

Past projects

  • Ethics of Biomedical Big Data

    Participants: Professor Luciano Floridi, Dr Brent Mittelstadt

    This project seeks to investigate the ethical aspects and requirements of Big Data in preparation to develop a European framework for the ethical use of Big Data in biomedical research.

Books

  • Floridi, L. (2016) The Fourth Revolution How the Infosphere Is Reshaping Human Reality. Oxford University Press, USA.
  • Floridi, L. (2015) The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era.
  • Floridi, L. (2013) The Ethics of Information. Oxford University Press.
  • Floridi, L. (2013) The Ethics of Information. Oxford University Press.
  • Floridi, L. (2013) The Philosophy of Information. OUP Oxford.
  • Floridi, L. (2013) Foreword.
  • Floridi, L. (2011) The Philosophy of Information.
  • Floridi, L. (2010) Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Chapters

Conference papers

  • Floridi, L. (2014) "Keynote talk: the logic of information design.", ASE Crnkovic, I., Chechik, M. and Grünbacher, P. (eds.). ACM. 1-2.
  • Illari, P. and Floridi, L. (2012) "IQ: Purpose and Dimensions.", ICIQ Berti-Equille, L., Comyn-Wattiau, I. and Scannapieco, M. (eds.). MIT. 178-192.
  • Ayesh, A., Bishop, M., Floridi, L. and Warwick, K. (2010) "Preface", Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test: Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century, TCIT 2010 - A Symposium at the AISB 2010 Convention.
  • Floridi, L. (2009) "Philosophical conceptions of information", Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 5363 LNCS 13-53.
  • D'Agostino, M. and Floridi, L. (2009) "The enduring scandal of deduction : Is propositional logic really uninformative?", Synthese. 167 (2) 271-315.
  • Floridi, L. (2008) "Understanding the Informational Turn: the Fourth Revolution (Invited talk).", WSPI Möller, M., Roth-Berghofer, T. and Neuser, W. (eds.). CEUR-WS.org. 332.
  • Greco, G.M., Paronitti, G., Turilli, M. and Floridi, L. (2005) "The philosophy of information a methodological point of view", CEUR Workshop Proceedings. 130.

Journal articles

  • The Philosophy and Ethics of Information

    This course introduces some key concepts and phenomena related to information, and seeks to answer some crucial theoretical questions of great philosophical significance prompted by the development of the information society.