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Information and Veridicality: Information Processing and the Bar-Hillel/Carnap Paradox

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nir Fresco  and
Michaelis Michael
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Abstract

Floridi’s Theory of Strongly Semantic Information posits the Veridicality Thesis (i.e., information is true). One motivation is that it can serve as a foundation for information-based epistemology being an alternative to the tripartite theory of knowledge. However, the Veridicality thesis is false, if ‘information’ is to play an explanatory role in human cognition. Another motivation is avoiding the so-called Bar-Hillel/Carnap paradox (i.e., any contradiction is maximally informative). But this paradox only seems paradoxical, if (a) ‘information’ and ‘informativeness’ are synonymous, (b) logic is a theory of inference, or (c) validity suffices for rational inference; a, b, and c are false.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 131 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The first author is grateful to Joseph Agassi, Aditya Ghose, and Patrick McGivern for discussions on this topic. Special thanks are due to the anonymous referees for useful critiques and suggestions for improvement. This research has been supported by a fellowship from the Edelstein Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine to the first author as well as a research grant from the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption.

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