An epistemic logic for becoming informed

Abstract

Various conceptual approaches to the notion of information can currently be traced in the literature in logic and formal epistemology. A main issue of disagreement is the attribution of truthfulness to informational data, the so called Veridicality Thesis (Floridi 2005). The notion of Epistemic Constructive Information (Primiero 2007) is one of those rejecting VT. The present paper develops a formal framework for ECI. It extends on the basic approach of Artemov's logic of proofs (Artemov 1994), representing an epistemic logic based on dependent justifications, where the definition of information relies on a strict distinction from factual truth. The definition obtained by comparison with a Normal Modal Logic translates a constructive logic for "becoming informed": its distinction from the logic of "being informed"-which internalizes truthfulness-is essential to a general evaluation of information with respect to truth. The formal disentanglement of these two logics, and the description of the modal version of the former as a weaker embedding into the latter, allows for a proper understanding of the Veridicality Thesis with respect to epistemic states defined in terms of information.

Practical and Philosophical Considerations for Defining Information as Well-formed, Meaningful Data in the Information Sciences

“…Similarly, Scarantino and Piccinini (2010) point out more nontruth-evaluable claims as well as list examples from computer science that are false, yet informative. In an attempt to avoid the need for the veridicality thesis, Primiero (2009) formalizes a logical approach to describing information that does not rely upon a notion of truth and thus does not arrive at such paradoxes. In retort to arguments like these, Floridi (2005) has provided reasons why various resistances to the veridicality thesis are flawed.…”

Semantic Information and the Trivialization of Logic: Floridi on the Scandal of Deduction

“…According to the standard logic of knowledge (epistemic logic) and belief (doxastic logic), as well as to the more recent attempts to axiomatize the "logic of being informed" (information logic), if an agent a knows (or believes, or is informed) that a sentence ϕ is true, and ψ is a logical consequence of ϕ, then a is supposed to know (or believe, or be informed) also that B is true. (For a survey on epistemic and doxastic logic see [32,33]; for information logic, or "the logic of being informed", see [34,35].) This is often described as paradoxical and labelled as "the problem of logical omniscience".…”

A Taxonomy of Errors for Information Systems

“…3 For the logic of becoming informed that applies at the instructional level of states, see [22] and [23]. 4 For the logic of being informed that applies at the level of goals, see [11].…”