I love information upon all subjects that come in my way, and especially upon those that are most important. Thus boldly declares Euphranor, one of the defenders of Christian faith in Berkley’s Alciphron (Berkeley, (1732), Dialogue 1, Section 5, Paragraph 6/10). Evidently, information has been an object of philosophical desire for some time, well before the computer revolution, Internet or the dotcompandemonium (see for example Dunn (2001) and Adams (2003)). Yet what does Euphranor love, exactly? What is information? The question (...) has received many answers in different fields. Unsurprisingly, several surveys do not even converge on a single, unified definition of information (see for example Braman 1989, Losee (1997), Machlup and Mansfield (1983), Debons and Cameron (1975), Larson and Debons (1983)). (shrink)

Agents require a constant flow, and a high level of processing, of relevant semantic information, in order to interact successfully among themselves and with the environment in which they are embedded. Standard theories of information, however, are silent on the nature of epistemic relevance. In this paper, a subjectivist interpretation of epistemic relevance is developed and defended. It is based on a counterfactual and metatheoretical analysis of the degree of relevance of some semantic information i to an informee/agent a, as (...) a function of the accuracy of i understood as an answer to a query q, given the probability that q might be asked by a. This interpretation of epistemic relevance vindicates a strongly semantic theory of information, according to which semantic information encapsulates truth. It accounts satisfactorily for several important applications and interpretations of the concept of relevant information in a variety of philosophical areas. And it interfaces successfully with current philosophical interpretations of causal and logical relevance. (shrink)

There are two basic approaches to the problem of induction:the empirical one, which deems that the possibility of induction depends on how theworld was made (and how it works) and the logical one, which considers the formation(and function) of language. The first is closer to being useful for induction, whilethe second is more rigorous and clearer. The purpose of this paper is to create an empiricalapproach to induction that contains the same formal exactitude as the logical approach.This requires: (a) that (...) the empirical conditions for the induction are enunciatedand (b) that the most important results already obtained from inductive logic are againdemonstrated to be valid. Here we will be dealing only with induction by elimination,namely the analysis of the experimental confutation of a theory. The result will bea rule of refutation that takes into consideration all of the empirical aspect of theexperiment and has each of the asymptotic properties which inductive logic has shown tobe characteristic of induction. (shrink)

Summary The paper presents a technical analysis of the notion of analogy by means of the notion of conceptual similarity (the inverse of distance). The main idea is to elucidate the analogy (similarity) between predicates (properties) in terms of the higher-order predicates they share or fail to share. The notions of predicate-similarity and theory-similarity (defined as the inverse of theory-distance) are then combined to give an analysis of the analogy between conceptual systems.

"Complexity" is a catchword of certain extremely popular and rapidly developing interdisciplinary new sciences, often called accordingly the sciences of complexity. It is often closely associated with another notably popular but ambiguous word, "information"; information, in turn, may be justly called the central new concept in the whole 20th century science. Moreover, the notion of information is regularly coupled with a key concept of thermodynamics, viz. entropy. And like this was not enough it is quite usual to add one more (...) at present extraordinarily popular notion, namely chaos, and wed it with the abovementioned concepts. It is my aim in this paper to critically analyse this conceptual mess from a logical and philosophical point of view concentrating on the concepts of complexity and information and the question concerning the true relation between them. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss some observations by Peirce which suggest he had some idea of the substantive metalogical differences between logics which permit both quantifiers and relations, and those which do not. Peirce thus seems to have had arguments?which even De Morgan and Frege lacked?that show the superior expressiveness of relational logics.

This paper outlines a quantitative theory of strongly semantic information (TSSI) based on truth-values rather than probability distributions. The main hypothesis supported in the paper is that the classic quantitative theory of weakly semantic information (TWSI), based on probability distributions, assumes that truth-values supervene on factual semantic information, yet this principle is too weak and generates a well-known semantic paradox, whereas TSSI, according to which factual semantic information encapsulates truth, can avoid the paradox and is more in line with the (...) standard conception of what generally counts as semantic information. After a brief introduction, section two outlines the semantic paradox implied by TWSI, analysing it in terms of an initial conflict between two requisites of a quantitative theory of semantic information. In section three, three criteria of semantic information equivalence are used to provide a taxonomy of quantitative approaches to semantic information and introduce TSSI. In section four, some further desiderata that should be fulfilled by a quantitative TSSI are explained. From section five to section seven, TSSI is developed on the basis of a calculus of truth-values and semantic discrepancy with respect to a given situation. In section eight, it is shown how TSSI succeeds in solving the paradox. Section nine summarises the main results of the paper and indicates some future developments. (shrink)

Summary A survey of recent work in the philosophy of science in Finland, with a bibliography. The main sources of influence emphasized are Eino Kaila (1890–1958) and G. H. von Wright (b. 1916). The main topics covered are: induction and probability; information and explanation; the acceptance and application of theories; the role of auxiliary (theoretical) terms; measurement; general methodology of social and behavioral sciences; finalistic explanation; methodology of sociology and history.

A number of areas of biology raise questions about what is of value in the natural environment and how we ought to behave towards it: conservation biology, environmental science, and ecology, to name a few. Based on my experience teaching students from these and similar majors, I argue that the field of environmental ethics has much to teach these students. They come to me with pent-up questions and a feeling that more is needed to fully engage in their subjects, and (...) I believe some exposure to environmental ethics can help focus their interests and goals. I identify three primary areas in which environmental ethics can con- tribute to their education. The first is an examination of who (or what) should be considered to be part of our moral community (i.e., the community to whom we owe direct duties). Is it humans only? Or does it include all sentient life? Or all life? Or ecosystems considered holistically? Often, readings implicitly assume one or more of these answers; the goal is to make the student more sensitive to these implicit claims and to get them to think about the different reasons that support them. The second area, related to the first, is the application of the different answers concerning the extent of the ethical community to real environmental issues and problems. Students need to be aware of how the different answers concerning the moral community can imply conflicting answers for how we should act in certain cases and to think about ways to move toward conflict resolution. The third area in which environmental ethics can contribute is a more conceptual one, focusing on central concepts such as biodiversity, sustainability, species, and ecosystems. Exploring and evaluating various meanings of these terms will make students more reflective and thoughtful citizens and biologists, sensitive to the implications that different conceptual choices make. (shrink)