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Topic: Re:Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences
Posted by: Leslie Smith
Date/Time: 2011/10/18 22:30:31

Good question: knowledge and information.

Knowledge has a truth value; on the standard analysis (Plato to Gettier and onwards) knowledge entails the truth of what is known. Commentators [eg: Moser in Audi's Cambridge Dictionary of?Philosophy] typically remark that this condition has rarely been challenged. For example, as Brit child I used to say

(1) New York is the capital of the USA

where (1) is a proposition (object of knowledge) and so true or false. Under the standard analysis, what I said as boy was something I believed, but could not know because it is false.

Information is, or at least can be,?meaningful but in and of itself is devoid of truth-value. For example, if as an anglophone you read

(2) Giftgas

you may take this to mean a present is available; as a german speaker, it would mean poison gas; as an illiterate person, it is a scribble, even a poor drawing, or mark on the ground. Information requires an interpretant (Peirce's semiotic theory) which may be a person, or it may be some alternative means for making (2) intelligible. Thereby epistemic questions can arise such as

(3) what can I do with (2) [knowing how]
(4) is (2) true or false [knowing that]
(5) are there any reasons for (2) [knowing why]

You might say: is an item of information a proposition? Not necessarily. A proposition is either true or false. But information can be a directive such as

(6) =>

meaning: you should go in the direction of the arrow. But a directive is neither true nor false. And too, the meaning of (6) has to be intelligible: why not the opposite direction? Try giving (6) to your dog about the direction to take as a trick or joke [false trail], when Fido is already hot on your actual trail by scent of smell......


Entire Thread

Topic(Point at the topics to see relevant reminders)Date PostedPosted By
Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:20:31Richard Meinhard
     Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:22:42Michael Lamport Commons
          Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:24:11Leslie Smith
               Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:25:17Michael Lamport Commons
     Re:Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:30:31Leslie Smith
                         Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:31:51Michael Lamport Commons
               Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/18 22:28:59Arne Engström
          Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/21 8:35:21Leslie Smith
               Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/21 8:36:25Ann Olivier
                    Re:Re:Re:Re:Competing frameworks from the Humanities and Social Sciences2011/10/21 8:38:17Leslie Smith

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