Working Towards a Definition of the Philosophy of Software

Citation

Bernardi C (2012) Working Towards a Definition of the Philosophy of Software. Review of: The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age, David M. Berry, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 200 Pages. ISBN 978-0-230-24418-4. Computational Culture, (2). http://computationalculture.net/review/working-towards-a-definition-of-the-philosophy-of-software

Abstract
Everyday life relies heavily on networked technologies that allow for a wide range of actions to take place, from the management of medical devices to the withdrawal of money from a cash point. Despite this, what lies behind these technological assemblages – data, code, and software – has received little attention, effectively remaining an off-limits world populated by software engineers, programmers, and geeks. Nevertheless, over the last fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in how software forms society in a way that goes beyond its being more than a set of “inaccessible codes”. This has led to the development of Software Studies, a nascent field that takes into analysis how “the background”, or data and software assemblages, contribute to the world. As David Berry has aptly observed, we are trying to learn “the way in which certain social formations are actualized through crystallization in computer code”

Notes
Output Type: Book Review

Journal
Computational Culture, Issue 2