Abstract
Introduction. Truth and falsity play a dominant role in contemporary work on information, misinformation, and disinformation. Discussions of these notions typically include remarks about their truth-values, or even explicit arguments in favour of their having fixed truth-values.
Method. I use Chalmers’s framework for identifying and potentially solving verbal disputes to analyse the discussions regarding information and truth.
Analysis. Philosophical analyses of the discussions of information and its relation to truth, as they play out between Luciano Floridi and Don Fallis (among others), are carried out in the paper.
Results. I find that these discussions are in fact a verbal dispute. Further, the dominant focus on truth and falsity in the work on information, misinformation, and disinformation, within philosophy of information, gives rise to a Floridian dilemma: a dilemma in which Floridi’s definition of semantic information, as inherently truthful, turns out to encompass certain varieties of misinformation and disinformation while excluding others.
Conclusion. I recommend that information must be defined as semantic content in general without reference to truth, i.e. as truth-neutral, such that all varieties of misinformation and disinformation can be kinds of information.
Method. I use Chalmers’s framework for identifying and potentially solving verbal disputes to analyse the discussions regarding information and truth.
Analysis. Philosophical analyses of the discussions of information and its relation to truth, as they play out between Luciano Floridi and Don Fallis (among others), are carried out in the paper.
Results. I find that these discussions are in fact a verbal dispute. Further, the dominant focus on truth and falsity in the work on information, misinformation, and disinformation, within philosophy of information, gives rise to a Floridian dilemma: a dilemma in which Floridi’s definition of semantic information, as inherently truthful, turns out to encompass certain varieties of misinformation and disinformation while excluding others.
Conclusion. I recommend that information must be defined as semantic content in general without reference to truth, i.e. as truth-neutral, such that all varieties of misinformation and disinformation can be kinds of information.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Information Research. An International Electronic Journal |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| ISSN | 1368-1613 |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2019 |