However, things changed. We revised our doctoral program (which was a good thing). But, I dropped the philosophical issues in information systems class and picked up the philosophical foundations of business research class. The two are related more strongly than one might think. The appropriate definition of concepts is at the very heart of good research. And, as it turns out, the definition of concepts shares the same foundations as the definition of entity classes in information modeling (concept of identity, problem of universals, etc). So, I dropped the foundations of information systems idea and moved on to foundations of business research.
This book uses a Socratic approach to concept analysis to explore issues such as personal privacy, knowledge management, quality of life, machine intelligence, the redistribution of social power, the differences between science and technology, and where requirements come from. The premise is that if we could conjure up the Ghost of Socrates he could probably help us quite a bit in sorting out some of the thornier problems in information systems; hence, the title.
For a wide variety of reasons, this book was finished but never published. So, I am making it available as a free download for anyone who may be interested in these topics. Feel free to download and distribute this book as long as you do not modify it or take credit for my work. If you have a comment or a question, please send an email to me at jartz@gwu.edu .
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