Information, Possible Worlds and the Cooptation of Sceptism

26 Pages Posted: 15 Jun 2021

See all articles by Luciano Floridi

Luciano Floridi

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center; University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 18, 2010

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Borel numbers, Hamming distance, Informational scepticism, David Lewis, Levenshtein distance, Modal metrics, Philosophy of information, Possible worlds, Scepticism, Semantic information

Suggested Citation

Floridi, Luciano, Information, Possible Worlds and the Cooptation of Sceptism (March 18, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3857768 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3857768

Luciano Floridi (Contact Author)

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center ( email )

85 Trumbull Street
New Haven, CT CT 06511
United States
2034326473 (Phone)

University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies ( email )

Via Zamboni 22
Bologna, Bo 40100
Italy

HOME PAGE: http://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/luciano.floridi/en

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
78
Abstract Views
531
Rank
439,112
PlumX Metrics