Abstract
In this essay I consider Luciano Floridi’s use of Object Oriented (OO) terminology and theory in explaining his concept of the information object. I argue for several reasons that even if we admit Floridian information objects into our ontology they cannot be much like OO objects. OO objects, I argue, are referents and as such have explicit identity relations across various levels of abstraction from conceptual design through to implementation on computer hard drives or the like. Further, OO objects are clearly artifactual or human-made entities, always instantiated explicitly via the methods associated with their corresponding and defining object classes. Information objects on the other hand, if we are to consider them ontologically primitive, cannot be referents and certainly cannot be artifacts.
The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
(Wittgenstein, 1961, [1.1])
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Notes
- 1.
This question was famously coined by Quine in his 1953a article “On What There Is”.
- 2.
We are obliged to point out that Floridi does limit the scope of his adoption of OO concepts and theory by saying “OOP is not a viable way of doing philosophical ontology, but a valuable methodology to clarify the nature of our ontological components” (2004a, p. 5).
- 3.
By “independent and external” I mean something whose existence is independent to human thinking or perceiving, and therefore would exist whether or not (for example) humans existed, in other words “observer-independent”.
- 4.
When I use the phrase “OO Object” I am talking about the structure and function of objects in the service of some OO application, design or model. I want to distinguish this from the phrase “Information Object” which embodies the meaning explicit in Floridi’s IE and Informational Realism and while Floridi uses OO terminology and method to explain his conception of the information object I want to show how, even if we do accept the “information object” concept, they cannot really be like OO objects.
- 5.
Development of an object oriented domain class begins with the systematic identification and modelling (and diagramming) of all the entities or objects, attributes, operations and relationships that an OO designer perceives to be important about a particular problem domain, be it business-oriented problems such as invoicing or accounts receivable or scientific problems such as the modelling of biological or genetic systems and so on. Individuals within the domain class are then generalised and represented as object classes which characterise the structure and behaviour common to all objects in that class.
- 6.
The idea of theory-ladeness comes from philosophy of science whereby scientific observations are said to be theory-laden when the language and terminology used to describe such observations in question is largely derived from the theory itself. Thus, discussions about the nature of information using OO terminology could be accused of being non-theory neutral. Having said that, it is difficult to see how any discussion regarding information could not be influenced by various aspects of culture and language.
- 7.
George Berkeley famously argued in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge that material objects were merely ideas or concepts.
- 8.
By actual representation I mean the physical or internal codification or implementation of the data as it exists on disk.
- 9.
I do not intend to rehearse the literature on the development of OO models and their abstraction relationships and rules across differing levels of abstraction, however, any review of UML OO modelling literature will suffice should the reader wish to read further. The UML Wikipedia page perhaps might be a good starting point.
- 10.
The problem of Universals was originally discussed by Plato and Aristotle and as a topic has captivated philosophy ever since. Universals are generally considered repeatable or recurrent abstract entities that can be instantiated in individual objects, classic examples are considered to be qualities shared by entities, such as two green chairs sharing the quality of “greenness” and “chairness”.
- 11.
Floridi does attempt to address ontological commitment to different LoA by attempting to reconcile epistemic and ontological structural realism. However, in this paper I am concerned with the relationships between information objects, OO concepts and real world objects, as such this is outside the scope of this particular paper.
- 12.
Date and Darwen (2000, p. 371) call this a “great blunder” arguing that it both dilutes OO concepts and undermines the conceptual integrity of the relational model.
- 13.
Aoraki is the indigenous Maori name for Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain.
- 14.
Generally the claim in this context refers to non-trivial or non-tautological facts. For example, 1 + 1 = 2 and, “unmarried men are bachelors” qualify as facts but they have no cause. (I thank Morgan Luck for pointing this out to me). We might note here as a by-line that Floridi and many others doubt the informative nature of tautologies or necessary truths.
- 15.
Johnson (2006, p. 197) “A common way of thinking about technology – perhaps the layperson’s way – is to think that it is physical or material objects. I will use the artifact to refer to the physical object.”
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Acknowledgments
I am indebted to both John Weckert and Morgan Luck who read earlier versions of this article and kindly provided many thoughtful and inspiring comments. I also graciously thank Skye Bothma for her indispensable editing and formatting assistance; of course any remaining errors or omissions are mine alone.
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McKinlay, S.T. (2012). The Floridian Notion of the Information Object. In: Demir, H. (eds) Luciano Floridi’s Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4292-5_12
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