This mini track is a continuation of a very successful line of mini-tracks that originated with the 1996 AIS conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Many leading scholars have participated in the mini-track, including West Churchman, Dick Mason, Rudy Hirschheim, Murray Turoff, and Kristo Ivanov. We expect an equally impressive list this year, if the mini-track is approved. Papers, panels and/or workshops dealing with any aspect of philosophy and its relationship to IS research, teaching or practice are solicited. Philosophy is an established and vast field, as compared to our fledgling area of information systems. Yet the roots of IS literature extend from philosophy going back to Churchman's work on Inquiring Systems, and Mason and Mitroff's "MIS research program" article in 1973. Over the years a host of others have relied on philosophy as a reference discipline. This mini-track is founded on the belief that we have hardly begun to tap the potential of philosophy in our work, especially in developing a more robust foundation for what we do. The objective is to explore how philosophy has been used as a reference discipline in the past, and to foster the development of a "philosophy of information technology." The continuing explosion of information technology in forms such as the World Wide Web and commercial information services is leading to an intrusion of information technology into our personal and business lives at a scope only imagined just a few years ago. Understanding and managing the implications of this technology seems to be a vital issue, not only for scholars of IS, but for human kind as a whole. It seems appropriate that we turn to philosophy as away of understanding these issues. ….(general description of the mini track in one paragraph).

Possible Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Ethical issues in IS
• Philosophy of science and its relationship to IS research and methodologies
• Roles that philosophy might play in relation to IS issues
• The philosophy of information technology
• IS epistemology
• General systems theory applied to IS issues
• Churchman's Inquiring Systems and IS issues
• Information technology and its impact on society

James F. Courtney
Tenneco Professor of Business Administration
Information and Operations Management Dept. (MS 4217)
322 Wehner Building
Mays College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Business
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-4217
Phone: 409-845-9541
Fax: 409-845-5653
e-mail: j-courtney@tamu.edu

Jaana Porra
Assistant Professor
University of Houston
College of Business Administration
Department of Decision and Information Sciences
Management Information Systems
280G Melcher Hall
Houston, Texas 77204-6283
Phone: 713-743 4583
Fax: 713-743 4940
e-mail: jaana@uh.edu