Information studies without information

Library Trends, Wntr, 2004 by Jonathan Furner

ABSTRACT

IN PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, the phenomena fundamental to human communication are routinely modeled in ways that do not require commitment to a concept of "information" separate from those of "data," "meaning," "communication," "knowledge," and "relevance" (inter alia). A taxonomy of conceptions of information may be developed that relies on commonly drawn philosophical distinctions (between linguistic, mental, and physical entities, between objects and events, and between particulars and universals); in such a taxonomy, no category requires the label "information" in order to be differentiated from others. It is suggested that a conception of information-as-relevance is currently the most productive of advances in theoretical information studies.

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Unsurprisingly, the nature of information has long been a topic of central concern for scholars of information studies (IS). (1) The body of literature in which authors have attempted to provide answers to the question "What is information?" may be viewed in any (or any combination) of the following ways: (i) as contributing to science--if information is cast as a naturally occurring phenomenon; (ii) as contributing to social science--if information is considered to be a product of human artifice; or (iii) as contributing to philosophy--if "information" is treated primarily as a fundamental concept existing at the same level as, for example, meaning, knowledge, and truth.

Although this body of literature is sizeable when taken as a whole, the quantity of work that may be classed under the third heading is small. One approach that is often taken in studies representative of the third class is to compare theories of information with theories of knowledge. Commonly, the everyday conception of knowledge (as the content of mental states) is contrasted with a philosophical conception of knowledge (typically, as justified true belief); and information is identified as knowledge (that is, knowledge in the first, everyday sense) that has been recorded or that is in some sense objective, external, or public, Somewhat oddly, given the nature of the conception of knowledge that is typically adopted in such accounts, a tendency has been for authors to go on to use the results of this kind of analysis to locate IS with respect to epistemology. A more productive approach might instead be to relate work in IS to that in philosophy of language, since it is the latter branch of philosophy that is concerned more exclusively with the content of mental states (i.e., thoughts); with the ways in which such content may be expressed, represented, or recorded; and with the ways in which such expressions may be interpreted or their meaning understood.

My suggestion is that if this alternative direction is taken, we shall find that philosophers of language have modeled the phenomena fundamental to human communication in ways that do not require us to commit to a separate concept of "information." Indeed, we can conclude that such a concept is unnecessary for IS. Once the concepts of interest have been labeled with conventional names such as "data," "meaning," "communication," "relevance," etc., nothing is left (so it may be argued) to which to apply the term "information." One corollary of such a conclusion is the equally negative judgment that the field of IS is itself misnamed, and that its subject matter should more appropriately be treated as a branch of communication studies, semiotics, or library studies.

In this paper, I will present a simple taxonomy of common conceptions of information--a taxonomy in which no single category seems to unequivocally require the label "information" to differentiate it from others. Before reaching that point, however, I wish to review some terminological distinctions that are commonplace in the literature of philosophy of language and that may correspond to certain distinctions that lie at the core of philosophy of information. And I would like to begin by attending to two preliminary questions that immediately present themselves when embarking on any attempt to develop a philosophical theory of information or to distinguish between competing theories.

THE DESIRABLE PROPERTIES OF A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF INFORMATION

First: What is the distinctive nature and scope of a philosophical theory, of information (as distinguished from a theory of information of any other kind)?

A philosophical theory of information--or, more precisely, a metaphysical or ontological theory of information--is assumed here to be a specification of the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a phenomenon may be identified as "information." Arriving at such a specification involves conceptual analysis--that is, analysis of the meaning of the concept(s) referred to by the word "information." Conceptual analysis emerged as the primary method used by philosophers in the particular paradigm ("analytic" philosophy) that rose to dominance in anglophone countries in the twentieth century. In our present case, the analysis also will involve conceptual classification, since it happens that several different conceptions of information have risen to different levels of prominence, and it is often helpful to construct a taxonomy highlighting the differences perceived to be most important.