Name of the Book:
ACCESS AND EQUITY ISSUES
Book Review Chapter:
Chapter 1: Intercultural Information Ethics
Quote: The word “philosophy” points to a specific way of questioning of the kind “what is?” (ti estin), and more precisely “what is being?”
Learning Expectations:
The Aristotle’s conception of practical philosophy is concerned with the reflection on the ways human beings dwell in the world, with their ethos, and their search for good life
Review:
According to Luhmann, the ethical discourse should not provide a given morality with a kind of fundamentum inconcussum or even become a meta-perspective beyond all other societal systems but, quite the contrary, it belongs to the self-referential process of morality itself.
Philosophic questioning is of the nature that it binds questions with the essence of the questioner. To answer the question ‘what is philosophy?’ is then by no means possible by referring to one of the possible answers alone, nor is it the result of looking for what is common to all of them as this would provide just a “void formula” (“leere Formel”) (Heidegger 1976, 19). It is also not sure that our answer, or Heidegger’s own, will be a philosophic one.
Lessons Learned
This situation of disturbance or insecurity may be a hint and even a “touchstone” that we are on a philosophic path. What is basic for grasping the differences among philosophic answers is their corresponding mood, including the sober mood of planning and calculating which is a characteristic of modern science and with it of what we use to call ‘modernity.’
Integrative Questions
1. How far does the Internet affect?
2. Is it for better or worse, local and particularly global cultures?
3. How far does it foster democratic processes inside and between them?
4. How do people construct their cultural identities within this medium?
5. How does it affect their customs, languages, and everyday problems?
