BIG DATA AND EPISTEMOLOGY

LUCIANO FLORIDI (Big Data and Their Epistemological Challenge, Philosophy & Technology, 2012)

“Despite the importance of the phenomenon, it is unclear what exactly the term “big data” means and hence refers to. The aforementioned document specifies that: “The phrase ‘big data’ in this solicitation refers to large, diverse, complex, longitudinal, and/or distributed data sets generated from instruments, sensors, Internet transactions, email, video, click streams, and/or all other digital sources available today and in the future.” You do not need to be an analytic philosopher to find this both obscure and vague” (Floridi, 2012).