Abstract
The main aim of this work is to contribute tothe elucidation of the concept of informationby comparing three different views about thismatter: the view of Fred Dretske's semantictheory of information, the perspective adoptedby Peter Kosso in his interaction-informationaccount of scientific observation, and thesyntactic approach of Thomas Cover and JoyThomas. We will see that these views involvevery different concepts of information, eachone useful in its own field of application. This comparison will allow us to argue in favorof a terminological `cleansing': it is necessaryto make a terminological distinction among thedifferent concepts of information, in order toavoid conceptual confusions when the word`information' is used to elucidate relatedconcepts as knowledge, observation orentropy.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Abramson, N.: 1963, Information Theory and Coding. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bell, D.A.: 1957, Information Theory and its Engineering Applications. London: Pitman & Sons.
Brown, H.I.: 1987, Observation and Objectivity. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cover, T. and J.A. Thomas: 1991, Elements of Information Theory. New York: JohnWiley & Sons.
Dennet, D.C.: 1969, Content and Conciousness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Dretske, R.: 1981, Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
Einstein, A., B. Podolsky and N. Rosen: 1935, Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete? Physical Review 47: 777–780.
Hughes, R.I.G.: 1989, The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jammer, M.: 1974, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Khinchin, A.I.: 1957, Mathematical Foundations of Information Theory. New York: Dover Publications.
Kosso, P.: 1989, Observability and Observation in Physical Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Reza, F.M.: 1961, Introduction to Information Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shannon, C.: 1948, The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27: 379–423.
Shapere, D.: 1982, The Concept of Observation in Science and Philosophy. Philosophy of Science 49: 485–525.
Stonier, T.: 1990, Information and the Internal Structure of the Universe. London: Springer-Verlag.
Wicken, J.S.: 1987, Entropy and Information: Suggestions for Common Language. Philosophy of Science 54: 176–193.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lombardi, O. What is Information?. Foundations of Science 9, 105–134 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:FODA.0000025034.53313.7c
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:FODA.0000025034.53313.7c