Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism
The article investigates the sceptical challenge from an information-theoretic perspective. Its main goal is to articulate and defend the view that either informational scepticism is radical, but then it is epistemologically innocuous because redundant; or it is moderate, but then epistemologically...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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2010
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| _version_ | 1826292399983296512 |
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| author | Floridi, L |
| author_facet | Floridi, L |
| author_sort | Floridi, L |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | The article investigates the sceptical challenge from an information-theoretic perspective. Its main goal is to articulate and defend the view that either informational scepticism is radical, but then it is epistemologically innocuous because redundant; or it is moderate, but then epistemologically beneficial because useful. In order to pursue this cooptation strategy, the article is divided into seven sections. Section 1 sets up the problem. Section 2 introduces Borel numbers as a convenient way to refer uniformly to (the data that individuate) different possible worlds. Section 3 adopts the Hamming distance between Borel numbers as a metric to calculate the distance between possible worlds. In Sects. 4 and 5, radical and moderate informational scepticism are analysed using Borel numbers and Hamming distances, and shown to be either harmless (extreme form) or actually fruitful (moderate form). Section 6 further clarifies the approach by replying to some potential objections. In the conclusion, the Peircean nature of the overall approach is briefly discussed. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:14:06Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:b533065c-33a3-47f9-b199-88eeec704ddc |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:14:06Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:b533065c-33a3-47f9-b199-88eeec704ddc2022-03-27T04:31:40ZInformation, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticismJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:b533065c-33a3-47f9-b199-88eeec704ddcEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2010Floridi, LThe article investigates the sceptical challenge from an information-theoretic perspective. Its main goal is to articulate and defend the view that either informational scepticism is radical, but then it is epistemologically innocuous because redundant; or it is moderate, but then epistemologically beneficial because useful. In order to pursue this cooptation strategy, the article is divided into seven sections. Section 1 sets up the problem. Section 2 introduces Borel numbers as a convenient way to refer uniformly to (the data that individuate) different possible worlds. Section 3 adopts the Hamming distance between Borel numbers as a metric to calculate the distance between possible worlds. In Sects. 4 and 5, radical and moderate informational scepticism are analysed using Borel numbers and Hamming distances, and shown to be either harmless (extreme form) or actually fruitful (moderate form). Section 6 further clarifies the approach by replying to some potential objections. In the conclusion, the Peircean nature of the overall approach is briefly discussed. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. |
| spellingShingle | Floridi, L Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title_full | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title_fullStr | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title_full_unstemmed | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title_short | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| title_sort | information possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT floridil informationpossibleworldsandthecooptationofscepticism |