CALL FOR PAPERS Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age Issue VII, 2016 Philosophy and Digital Traces Digital traceability is today a total social fact. Digital technologies keep track of everything we do online, and we spend online an increasing part of our time. Until the end of the last century, several technological practices mediated our access to the new media and these rituals used to found a strong distinction between online and offline. For some years, however, such a frontier is becoming more and more subtle. The quick diffusion of portable, wearable, and implantable technologies, together with the fact that most of us are living in highly connected environments, is making the real-virtual distinction obsolete. Even without sharing such an extreme position, it is clear that digital traces represent nowadays a new way to access individual and social lives. Private companies, public institutions, and social scientists are currently developing several techniques and technologies in order to make sense, and in some cases profit, of such a great amount of traces. The seventh issue of Azimuth aims to investigate digital traces and their impact on human existence and ontology. Our hypothesis is that digital traces can represent a new paradigm starting from we can think humanism and the human being, its environment and its technical action in the world The importance of such a computational turn is comparable with that of the linguistic turn in HSS in the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, we believe that human and social sciences, and philosophy in particular, can give an important contribution for a critical understanding of those political and economical uses of digital traces that have an effect on human individual and social life. Traditionally, philosophy developed a deterministic approach to technology. In this context, all considerations must be rather object-oriented. Different dimensions of digital traces and digital traceability can be considered: * * *
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Ontology: There are important differences between traces, digital traces, data, signs, symbols, information, etc. that must be investigated. Moreover, one might consider the old-fashioned but still problematic distinction between online and offline. Epistemology: Digital traces are collected, analyzed and returned. This process of making sense of digital traces needs to be questioned. Anthropology: Digital traces have anthropological implications. Like other technologies they are becoming performative metaphors for explaining several aspects of human existence: mind, identity, subjectivity, (social) (inter)actions, etc. Moreover, they are extending the boundaries of the human nature, making clear a original bond between Man and technics. Ethics, economy, and Politics: Many ethical, economic, and political questions arise with digital traceability. Scholars are dealing with problems concerning surveillance, privacy, labor, the right to be forgotten, etc.
All papers giving an original contribution on these and other similar topics are welcomed. Please send your papers to:
[email protected].
Deadline: – For a proposal (abstract max 300 words): 20th August, 2015 – For a complete article: 20th December, 2015. Min-Max contribution length: Contribution will be not less than 25.000 types and will not exceed 34.000 types.
Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age is a highly-scientific review headed for an international public. More info on: www.azimuthjournal.com.
