Information.

Duff, Alistair

Abstract

It is safe to say that information has not hitherto been a central concept of political philosophy. Apart from occasional flashes – from ancient Greek speculations on the political significance of logos (translatable in some contexts as “information”) to journalist-philosopher Walter Lippmann's comments on information and the “good society” – information, unlike related concepts such as knowledge or education, has generally slipped under the disciplinary radar. However, today, amid the socio-technical process of “informatization” – the dramatic rise in the salience of information as object of both consciousness and technology – political philosophers as well as economists and sociologists are beginning to ask what this phenomenon might imply for perennial questions concerning justice, freedom, and the role of the state.

Citation

Duff, A. (2014). Information. In The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, 1833-1835. Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0511

• Acceptance Date: Sep 9, 1999
• Online Publication Date: Sep 15, 2014
• Publication Date: Sep 15, 2014
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2016
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 1833-1835
• Book Title: The Encyclopedia of Political Thought
• ISBN: 978-1405191296
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0511
• Keywords: Democracy; freedom; idealism; information society; mass media; political philosophy
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/9902
• Publisher URL: http:dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0511