This multifaceted essay emerges from a host of sources within diverse academic settings. Its central thesis is guided by physicist John A. Wheeler's thoughts on the quantum enigma. Wheeler concludes, following Niels Bohr, that we are co-participants within the universal self-organizing process. This notion merges with concepts from Peirce's process philosophy, Eastern thought, issues of topology, and border theory in cultural studies and social science, while surrounding itself with such key terms as complementarity, interdependence, interrelatedness, vagueness, generality, incompleteness, inconsistency, and (...) mestizaje. Ultimately, a sense of semiosic process pervades in light of combined homogenous and hetergenous tendencies. (shrink)

Despite recent major advances in the neuroscience underlying cognition, the processes of its emergence and evolution are far from being understood. In our view, current interrelated concepts of mind; knowledge; epistemology; perception; cognition and information fail to reflect the real dynamics of mental processes, their ontology and their logic. It has become routine to talk about information in relation to these processes, but there is no consensus about its most relevant qualitative and functional properties. We present a theory of human (...) cognition based on an ontology and epistemology of information and information processes originally proposed by Wu including an ontological doctrine of the different grades of information; and an informational epistemology based on a noegenesis of the doctrine of informational intermediaries that mediate between the cognitive subject and object. This theory is supported by the new, non-propositional logic proposed recently by Brenner. We demonstrate the utility of our approach for the reconceptualization of the virtual properties of reality and cognition. It is strongly anti-representationalist and can provide the basis for the integration of inputs from outside the brain into cognitive structures. For us, the philosophy of information is a metaphilosophy, implying major changes in both the content and methodology of standard philosophical disciplines. We suggest that this philosophy of information and our informational approach may help guide research in a number of current areas of cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper we will discuss some epistemological aspects of lexical and terminological usage in the international arena, with special reference to the different rhetorics of the social and natural sciences. Sociolinguistic research confined to monolingual communities suggests that close-knit network structure is an important mechanism of language maintenance, in that speakers are able to form a cohesive group capable of resisting pressure, linguistic and social, from outside the group (MILROY, 1987). The concept of a linguistic norm in sociolinguistic theory (...) can be viewed here as the product of "cultural focusing". In the same way, intercultural communication is characterized by the spreading of standardized terminologies (ISO) and conceptual modes of thinking associated with a common scientific and technological practice in cross-border communities. A basic feature is frequent language interaction, based upon the need for scientific exchange and upon the extralinguistic models conveyed by powerful inter/transnational links and shared scientific paradigms. In this context, an international standard language could be seen as another case of cultural focusing, where intercultural contact would evolve along monocultural lines. However, a formally standardized language may conceal conceptual fuzziness, as has been shown for example in analyses of the kind of language used by social scientists (INTERCOCTA) or found in political rhetoric (ECCRDSS). The semantic and pragmatic differentiations of these latter forms of intercultural communication, and more generally, the interactions between the ordering of knowledge, the transfer of this knowledge through standardized language and the variety of cultural perceptions, call for a polylogic framework that accounts for their coexistence. (shrink)

The work of Luciano Floridi lies at the interface of philosophy, information science and technology, and ethics, an intersection whose existence and significance he was one of the first to establish. His closely related concepts of a philosophy of information (PI), informational structural realism, information logic (IL), and information ethics (IE) provide a new ontological perspective from which moral concerns can be addressed, especially but not limited to those arising in connection with the new information and communication technologies. In this (...) paper, I relate Floridi's approach to another novel perspective, namely, that of an extension of logic to complex real processes, including those of information production and transfer. This non-propositional, non-truth-functional logic (logic in reality (LIR)) is grounded in the fundamental dualism (dynamic opposition) inherent in energy and accordingly present at all levels of reality. The LIR description of the dynamics of processes and their evolution is relevant to what Floridi refers to as the possible non-linguistic aspects of information. It suggests answers to some of Floridi's “outstanding problems” in PI related to the ontological status of information and how it is used in cognition. Floridi's IL retains the formal structure of the doxastic and epistemic logics from which he correctly distinguishes it and is the basis for his conceptual PI. However, LIR fulfills Floridi's implied requirement that logic be regarded as a natural phenomenon dealing with other natural phenomena, recovering its original philosophical function. LIR provides a logical foundation for discussion of ethical questions based on kinds of information that complements IL. Both are reconsiderations of logic that, as Marijuan suggests, may be necessary for the advancement of information technology in an ethical direction (cf. also Brenner). IE focuses on entities as constituted by information in an overall strategy that generalizes the concept of moral agents. LIR and its related ontology naturalize critical aspects of Floridi's theses, especially, the moral value of being as such and a non-separable joint responsibility of individuals and groups. I compare IE to other current approaches to ethics and information technology (e.g., phenomenological and social constructivist). Ethical information is defined “ecologically” in process terms as reality in a physical space (cf. Floridi), with an intentional “valence,” positive and negative, in the morally valued interaction between producer and receiver. LIR is neither topic-neutral nor context independent and can support an ethics involving apparently contradictory perspectives (e.g., internalist and externalist). Ethics involves practical reasoning, and unlike standard logics, LIR supports Magnani's approach to abductive reasoning in rational moral decision making. The basis of moral responsibility and the consequent behavior of individuals involved in information and communications technologies is the same logical–metaphysical principle of dynamic opposition instantiated at other levels of reality. The way moral responsibilities are actively accepted (or not) by individuals supervenes on their primitive psychological structure, which in turn reflects an evolutionary development grounded in the fundamental dualism of the physical world. The paper concludes with some suggestions of areas of philosophical research, such as causality, identity, and the ontological turn, where convergence of the Floridi and LIR approaches might be envisaged. Their overall motivation is the same, namely, the development of strategies for reinforcing and increasing ethical sensitivity wherever possible. The ethical information concept outlined in the paper supports the function of IE, assigned to it by Floridi, of potentially determining what is right and what is wrong. (shrink)

The work is the presentation of a logical theory - Logic in Reality (LIR) - and of applications of that theory in natural science and philosophy, including ...

Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink)

‘Reasoning’ can be considered a general concept that, upon speaking, is the ‘enraonar’, a Catalan word that should not be mistaken with ‘explain’ nor with ‘discuss’ which imply more detail, and cover different situations. This article is presented as an essay on the ancient ideal of ‘enraonar’. To that end, it is explained in what sense ‘enraonar’ and reason are one of the most complex phenomena thought has to deal with. Here it is argued that these natural phenomena require a (...) systematic and ‘scientific’ study, and that withoutthis knowledge computer science cannot simulate people’s every-day ‘enraonar’. (shrink)