dc.contributor.author | Floridi, L. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2013-01-08T16:29:10Z | |
dc.date.available | 2013-01-08T16:29:10Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2010 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Floridi , L 2010 , ' Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism ' , Synthese , vol. 175 , no. 1 , pp. 63-88 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9736-0 | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0039-7857 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE: 186568 | |
dc.identifier.other | PURE UUID: a9ff282d-abb8-4303-8178-cb27683fb72f | |
dc.identifier.other | dspace: 2299/4865 | |
dc.identifier.other | Scopus: 77956132965 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2299/9510 | |
dc.description | “The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer | |
dc.description.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. | en |
dc.language.iso | eng | |
dc.relation.ispartof | Synthese | |
dc.rights | Open | |
dc.subject | Borel numbers | |
dc.subject | Hamming distance | |
dc.subject | Informational scepticism | |
dc.subject | Levenshtein distance | |
dc.subject | Semantic information | |
dc.title | Information, possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism | en |
dc.contributor.institution | Philosophy | |
dc.contributor.institution | School of Humanities | |
dc.contributor.institution | Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities Research Institute | |
dc.description.status | Peer reviewed | |
dc.relation.school | School of Humanities | |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2010 | |
rioxxterms.versionofrecord | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9736-0 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | |
herts.preservation.rarelyaccessed | true | |
herts.rights.accesstype | Open | |