Information and Inference

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-IX

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2. Information and Induction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. On Semantic Information

      • Jaakko Hintikka

      Pages 3-27

   3. Bayesian Information Usage

      • Dean Jamison

      Pages 28-57

   4. Experimentation as Communication with Nature

      • Roger Rosenkrantz

      Pages 58-93

3. Information and Some Problems of the Scientific Method

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 95-95

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   2. On the Information Provided by Observations

      • Risto Hilpinen

      Pages 97-122

   3. Quantitative Tools for Evaluating Scientific Systematizations

      • Juhani Pietarinen

      Pages 123-147

   4. Qualitative Information and Entropy Structures

      • Zoltan Domotor

      Pages 148-194

4. Information and Learning

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 195-195

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   2. Learning and the Structure of Information

      • Dean Jamison, Deborah Lhamon, Patrick Suppes

      Pages 197-259

5. New Applications of Information Concepts

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 261-261

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   2. Surface Information and Depth Information

      • Jaakko Hintikka

      Pages 263-297

   3. Towards a General Theory of Auxiliary Concepts and Definability in First-Order Theories

      • Jaakko Hintikka, Raimo Tuomela

      Pages 298-330

6. Back Matter

   Pages 331-338

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In the last 25 years, the concept of information has played a crucial role in communication theory, so much so that the terms information theory and communication theory are sometimes used almost interchangeably. It seems to us, however, that the notion of information is also destined to render valuable services to the student of induction and probability, of learning and reinforcement, of semantic meaning and deductive inference, as~well as of scientific method in general. The present volume is an attempt to illustrate some of these uses of information concepts. In 'On Semantic Information' Hintikka summarizes some of his and his associates' recent work on information and induction, and comments briefly on its philosophical suggestions. Jamison surveys from the sub­ jectivistic point of view some recent results in 'Bayesian Information Usage'. Rosenkrantz analyzes the information obtained by experimen­ tation from the Bayesian and Neyman-Pearson standpoints, and also from the standpoint of entropy and related concepts. The much-debated principle of total evidence prompts Hilpinen to examine the problem of measuring the information yield of observations in his paper 'On the Information Provided by Observations'. Pietarinen addresses himself to the more general task of evaluating the systematizing ('explanatory') power of hypotheses and theories, a task which quickly leads him to information concepts. Domotor develops a qualitative theory of information and entropy. His paper gives what is probably the first axiomatization of a general qualitative theory of information adequate to guarantee a numerical representation of the standard sort.

• axiomatization
• communication
• concept
• experimentation
• nature
• present
• probability
• semantic
• structure
• subject

• University of Helsinki, Finland

  Jaakko Hintikka

• Stanford University, USA

  Jaakko Hintikka, Patrick Suppes

Jaakko Hintikka is the author or co-author of thirty volumes and of some 300 scholarly articles in mathematical and philosophical logic, epistemology, language theory, philosophy of science, history of ideas and history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Peirce, The Bloomsbury Group, Husserl and Wittgenstein. He has also been active in international scholarly organizations, most recently as the First Vice-President of FISP, Vice-President of IIP and Co-Chair of the American Organizing Committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Synthese and the Managing Editor of Synthese Library since 1965.

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