“Virtual Information” and the role of Practical Reason: Fichtean Themes in the Philosophy of Information

In this paper I will propose that Fichte's systematization of transcendental philosophy could give a strong input to the philosophy of information. In particular I would like to give a Fichtean reading of the notion of virtual information that Luciano Floridi and Marcello D'Agostino introduced in the literature and which was in turn expressly based on a suggestion originally proposed by Hintikka. I will offer a genesis of the concept of virtual information and in doing so I will make use of the idea firstly introduced by Kant and then developed by Fichte, that theoretical reason is based upon practical reason; I will show how the latter is involved in our reasoning at a very elementary stage; eventually I will argue that Fichte's explanation of the 'ought to' (Soll) in and its impact on our consciousness explains how we can access so-called virtual information.