What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments. With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence

A real book on ethics, as Wittgenstein had it, if one could conceive it in the first place, would be the book to destroy all other books. Yet there is an increasing number of real-world discourses in which ethical values are mobilized as justifications for socio-political action while, in turn, moral problems are becoming a topic of political negotiation. Although it will be difficult to find systematic accounts of an absolute good or of absolute values in these debates, it is equally difficult to imagine them not being deeply informed by such considerations. Rather than merely adding to the corpus of applied ethics on the one hand or remaining in seemingly Wittgensteinian silence about ethics on the other, many contributions to this volume explore the reach of what can be said in ethical terms, while others provide critical discussions of what is being said in various fields of applied ethics and political philosophy under real-world power relations. This volume collects invited contributions from the 35th International Wittgenstein Symposium 2012 in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. Authors include: Alice Crary, Peter Dabrock, Rom Harre, Agnes Heller, Jaakko Hintikka, Peter Koller, Anton Leist, Chantal Mouffe, Julian Nida-Rumelin, Hans Sluga, David Stern, Gianni Vattimo.

To speak of participation today raises a series of questions on how the presence and use of new media affect modes of social participation. From a variety of theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives, the contributions in this volume explore participation in different social realms - from everyday life, interpersonal relationships, work and leisure activities to collective and political action. This collection demonstrates that participation is a localised notion, assuming a multitude of shapes under a variety of technological, political, socio-economic, linguistic and cultural conditions.

This volume represents a collection of recent thinking and research on the social and cultural aspects of contemporary broadband societies by exploring the social experiences and practices of using new information and communication technologies (ICT) within different contexts and domains of the emerging broadband society. It offers a compendium of the latest thoughts and questions on digitally mediated citizenship, networked identity, and sociality in the 21st Century and covers four main themes and empirical areas of research: uses and practices of new media, with particular focus on underprivileged groups, new media and the social differentiation of their use, ICT use and sustainable development, and finally new technologies, new challenges.

What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments. With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence

Die neueren Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien zeichnen sich durch immer starker vernetzte, dezentrale Strukturen aus. Zugleich wird Vernetzung im Sinne dezentral und flexibel organisierter Systeme auch eine immer bedeutsamere Metapher fur gesellschaftliche Organisationsprozesse. In diesem Band, der sowohl sozial- als auch technikwissenschaftliche Perspektiven umfasst, wird den Verbindungen zwischen technischen und sozialen Netzwerkkonzepten nachgegangen und deren wechselseitige Beeinflussung untersucht."