New Paper (CJP): Social-Computation-Supporting Kinds

The Canadian Journal of Philosophy has published my paper on what I call “Social-Computation-Supporting Kinds”. This paper is a first attempt to re-describe the role of computation in social ontology. I argue – in move I would self-servingly love to call “bold” – that there is a kind of social kinds which is distinguished by supporting social computations, that is groups implementing computational processes.

I want to stress that it is a first attempt and will leave many questions open. It’s value lies, hopefully, in doing something different in the social kinds debate and sketching the value this new approach will have. I expect to publish more on this approach.

The paper is once again published Open Access, thanks to the University of Cambridge.

I also presented the gist of the paper at the recent online Social Ontology conference. My video presentation from this conference is still available for those who don’t want to read the paper.