Information Studies Without Information

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. 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, Jonathan Furner, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 300 Young Drive North, Box 951520, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520 428 library trends/winter 2004 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 429 furner/information studies without information 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. Our second preliminary question is, On what criteria may a philosophical theory of information be evaluated? Given the parallel existence of multiple (and perhaps mutually exclusive) conceptions of information, it would be helpful to choose from among them on the basis of some agreed-upon criterion (or set of criteria). The possibilities include the following: 1. Coherence. Our understanding of information should plausibly cohere with our understanding of other related concepts such as knowledge, meaning, truth, cognition, relevance, etc. 2. Parsimony. According to the principle of Occam’s razor, a theory should not posit the existence of unfamiliar kinds of entities, unless it proves impossible to account for certain phenomena in terms of primitive or familiar concepts. 3. Utility. The primary purpose of a theory, one might argue, is to enhance our understanding of the object of study. Understanding may be improved by many means; one of the most productive is the process by which we come to recognize the simultaneous validity of multiple perspectives on a single issue. If a theory is suggestive of an agenda for future work, either through further theorizing or through empirical research, then it is doing its job. The Physical, the Mental, and the Linguistic A simple model that one may use to show how some of the concerns of modern philosophical inquiry relate to one another is depicted in Figure 1. In this model, entities of interest are divided among three categories: (i) physical entities, such as objects and situations; (ii) mental entities, such as concepts and thoughts; and (iii) linguistic entities,2 such as words and utterances.3 The nature of entities in the physical world is the concern of metaphysics;4 the nature of entities in the mental world is the concern of philosophy of mind; and the nature of entities in the linguistic world is the concern of philosophy of language. Where these separate areas of inquiry overlap is in their shared interest in the nature of the relationships between entities in different categories. We might wish to say, for instance, that linguistic entities (e.g., utter430 library trends/winter 2004 ances) both “express” mental entities (e.g., thoughts) and are “about” physical entities (e.g., situations). We might also wish to say that mental entities are, in some similar sense, “about” physical entities. This simple rendering of the triangular structure immediately raises questions that seem to require more complex answers—answers upon which, ideally, there would be consensus in multiple branches of philosophy. For example, we might ask, What, more precisely, is the nature of the linguistic (or semantic) aboutness that relates words and objects? Is this linguistic aboutness different from the cognitive aboutness that relates concepts and objects? If one of these kinds of relationship is to be characterized as “meaning,” how is the other to be differentiated? Each of these kinds of relationship has been the object of extended analysis; indeed, the central project of the philosophy of language in the twentieth century may be viewed as an extended exploration of the meaning of “meaning.” What is it to say (i) that something has meaning (i.e., is meaningful) and (ii) that something has the particular meaning p? A comprehensive review of the contributions to the literature on these topics is well beyond the scope of the present paper.5 Instead, what is provided here is a brief introduction to some of the more basic issues, with the aim simply of reaching the point where we may comprehensibly suggest definitions of the categories that, it is argued, are most relevant to a philosophy of information. expression representation “presentation” Linguistic Mental