Abstract
Luciano Floridi’s informational structural realism (ISR) takes a constructionist attitude towards the problems of epistemology and metaphysics, but the question of the nature of the semantical component of his view remains vexing. In this paper, I propose to dispense with the semantical component of ISR completely. I outline a Syntactical version of ISR (SISR for short). The unified entropy-based framework of information has been adopted as the groundwork of SISR. To establish its realist component, SISR should be able to dissolve the latching problem. We have to be able to account for the informational structures–reality relationship in the absence of the standard semantical resources. The paper offers a pragmatic solution to the latching problem. I also take pains to account for the naturalistic plausibility of this solution by grounding it in the recent computational neuroscience of the predictive coding and the free energy principle.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
Verification and validation could be defined on the basis of checking whether we are constructing (or have constructed) what we have (or had) planned to construct checking whether we are constructing what is required.
The constructionist approach to truth and knowledge resurfaced more recently in (Floridi 2016), where he asserted that on some occasions, a proposition, a message, or some information qualifies as being knowledge (and truthful) not just in itself but relationally, with respect to an informational agent. He also demonstrated that there are cases in which the poietic (constructive) intervention on a system determines the truth of the model of that system.
This is different from the first sense of ‘syntactical’. For example, the theory of semantic information of Bar-Hillel and Carnap is semantic in the second sense, but syntactic in the first sense (it is based on state-descriptions). This point has brought to my attention by one of the referees of this journal.
Gibbs entropy is derived out of (\( F = - T\ln Z \)) where F is free energy, T is equal to fixed temperature, and Z is partition function equal to \( \sum\nolimits_{i} e^{{- \epsilon_{i}/T}}. \)
Although I do not endorse a fully human constructionist stance, I do not think that the proposal that I develop here is at odds with Floridi’s (2017) remarks on the significance of the constructionist mechanisms of the formation of knowledge. This is because I do not assert that construction would be reducible to a natural process without information loss. The main difference is that while Floridi draws on computer science to articulate his conception of semantics, I inform my solution by drawing on the resources of empirical psychology and computational neuroscience. Also, notice that that Floridi simply offered a plea for non-naturalism. Therefore, I do not need to engage a debate over the correctness of the naturalist stance, even if my conception of naturalism were at odds with Floridi’s constructionism. But the mentioned stances are not at odds.
This could be worded as the ‘mind-world relationship’ too. But as this paper is concerned with the philosophy of science, I articulate the problem in a way that underscores what is important from the perspective of the philosophy of science.
Enactivism and embodied mind thesis define cognition as embodied action and underline the role agents as dynamical systems enacting in the world. Enactivism could be traced back to the continental traditions that underscores the role of body in the cognition (see Varela et al. 1991). Extended mind thesis is stemmed out of Clark and Chalmers’ active externalism and their emphasis on the contribution of the brain and environment in forging a coupled cognitive system (Clark and Chalmers 1998).
This indicates that the data should not be either preinstalled in the cognitive system or uploaded from an external source.
References
Adriaans, P. (2010). A critical analysis of Floridi’s theory of semantic information. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 23(1–2), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-010-9097-5.
Beni, M. D. (2016). Epistemic informational structural realism. Minds and Machines, 26(4), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-016-9403-4.
Bruineberg, J., Kiverstein, J., & Rietveld, E. (2016). The anticipating brain is not a scientist: The free-energy principle from an ecological-enactive perspective. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1239-1.
Carnap, R. (1937). The logical syntax of language. Edited by A. Smeaton (trans.). London: Kegan Paul Trench, Trubner & Co.
Carnap, R. (1942). Introduction to semantics: And formalization of logic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Carnap, R. (1955). Meaning and synonymy in natural languages. Philosophical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02330951.
Clark, A. (2012). Dreaming the whole cat: Generative models, predictive processing, and the enactivist conception of perceptual experience. Mind, 121(483), 753–771. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzs106.
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x12000477.
Clark, A. (2015). Radical predictive processing. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 53(S1), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12120.
Clark, A. (2016a). Surfing uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190217013.001.0001.
Clark, A. (2016b). Busting out: Predictive brains, embodied minds, and the puzzle of the evidentiary veil. Noûs,. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12140.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/58.1.7.
da Costa, Newton C. A., Bueno, O., & French, S. (1998). The logic of pragmatic truth. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 27(6), 603–620. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1004304228785.
da Costa, Newton C. A., & French, S. (2003). Science and partial truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/019515651x.001.0001.
Dayan, P., Hinton, G. E., Neal, R. M., & Zemel, R. S. (1995). The Helmholtz machine. Neural Computation, 7(5), 889–904.
Elias, P., Carnap, R., & Bar-Hillel, Y. (1954). An outline of a theory of semantic information. The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 19(3), 230. https://doi.org/10.2307/2268645.
Engel, A. K., Maye, A., Kurthen, M., & König, P. (2013). Where’s the action? The pragmatic turn in cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(5), 202–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.03.006.
Feigl, H. (1950). Existential hypotheses. Realistic versus phenomenalistic interpretations. Philosophy of Science, 17(1), 35–62.
Floridi, L. (2004). Outline of a theory of strongly semantic information. Minds and Machines, 14(2), 197–221. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:mind.0000021684.50925.c9.
Floridi, L. (2005). Is semantic information meaningful data? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70(2), 351–370. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00531.x.
Floridi, L. (2008). A defence of informational structural realism. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9163-z.
Floridi, L. (2009). Against digital ontology. Synthese, 168(1), 151–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-008-9334-6.
Floridi, L. (2011a). Semantic information and the correctness theory of truth. Erkenntnis, 74(2), 147–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-010-9249-8.
Floridi, L. (2011b). A defence of constructionism: Philosophy as conceptual engineering. Metaphilosophy, 42(3), 282–304. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2011.01693.x.
Floridi, L. (2014). Perception and testimony as data providers. Logique et Analyse, 57(226), 3421–3438.
Floridi, L. (2016). What a maker’s knowledge could be. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1232-8.
Floridi, L. (2017). A plea for non-naturalism as constructionism. Minds and Machines. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-017-9422-9.
French, S. (2014). The structure of the world: Metaphysics and representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684847.001.0001.
French, S. (2015). (Structural) realism and its representational vehicles. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0879-x.
French, S., & Ladyman, J. (1999). Reinflating the semantic approach. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 13(2), 103–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/02698599908573612.
French, S., & Ladyman, J. (2003). Remodelling structural realism: Quantum physics and the metaphysics of structure. Synthese, 136(1), 31–56. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024156116636.
French, S., & Ladyman, J. (2011). In defence of ontic structural realism. Scientific Structuralism, 281, 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9597-8_2.
Friston, K. J. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127–138. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787.
Friston, K. J. (2012). Predictive coding, precision and synchrony. Cognitive Neuroscience, 3(3–4), 238–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2012.691277.
Friston, K. J., & Price, C. J. (2001). Generative models, brain function and neuroimaging. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 42(3), 167–177.
Friston, K. J., & Stephan, K. E. (2007). Free-energy and the brain. Synthese, 159(3), 417–458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9237-y.
Frith, C. D. (2007). Making up the mind : How the brain creates our mental world. Malden: Blackwell Pub.
Harnad, S. (1990). The symbol grounding problem. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 42(1–3), 335–346. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2789(90)90087-6.
Hohwy, J. (2013). The predictive mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682737.001.0001.
Hohwy, J. (2014). The self-evidencing brain. Noûs, 50(2), 259–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12062.
Hohwy, J. (2017). How to entrain your evil demon. In T. Metzinger & W. Wiese (Eds.), Philosophy and predictive processing. MIND Group: Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main. https://doi.org/10.15502/9783958573048.
Morris, C. (1938). Foundations of the theory of signs. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.
Oller, J. W. (1972). On the relation between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Linguistics, 10(83), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1972.10.83.43.
Rao, R. P., & Ballard, D. H. (1999). Predictive coding in the visual cortex: A functional interpretation of some extra-classical receptive-field effects. Nature Neuroscience, 2(1), 79–87. https://doi.org/10.1038/4580.
Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Srinivasan, M. V., Laughlin, S. B., & Dubs, A. (1982). Predictive coding: A fresh view of inhibition in the retina. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 216(1205), 427–459.
Stegmüller, W. (1979). The structuralist view of theories. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-95360-6.
Suppe, F. (1998). Understanding scientific theories: An assessment of developments, 1969–1998. In Philosophy of Science Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers (Vol. 67, pp. 102–115). http://www.jstor.org/stable/188661.
Suppes, P. (1962). Models of data. In Logic, methodology, and philosophy of science: Proceedings of 1960 International Congress (pp. 252–261). Stanford U: Stanford University Press.
Suppes, P. (1967). What is a scientific theory?” In S. Morgenbesser (Ed.), Philosophy of science today (pp. 55–67). New York: Basic Books. https://www.google.com/_/chrome/newtab?espv=2&ie=UTF-8.
Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2005). Solving the symbol grounding problem: A critical review of fifteen years of research. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 17(4), 419–445.
Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2007). A praxical solution of the symbol grounding problem. Minds and Machines, 17(4), 369–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-007-9081-3.
Tarski, A. (1944). The semantic conception of truth: And the foundations of semantics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4(3), 341. https://doi.org/10.2307/2102968.
Uebel, T. (2013). Pragmatics in Carnap and Morris and the bipartite metatheory conception. Erkenntnis, 78(3), 523–546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-011-9352-5.
van Fraassen, B. C. (1980). The scientific image. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0198244274.001.0001.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind : Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Worrall, J. (1989). Structural realism: The best of both worlds? Dialectica, 43(1–2), 99–124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-8361.1989.tb00933.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Beni, M.D. Syntactical Informational Structural Realism. Minds & Machines 28, 623–643 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-018-9463-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-018-9463-8