Keywords
Veridicality thesis
Bar-Hillel–Carnap paradox
Deduction scandal
Definite descriptions
Philosophy of information
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper offers a systematic reconstruction and critical examination of Luciano Floridi's
strongly semantic theory of information (TSSI). After situating Floridi's project within the
broader context of the philosophy of information and identifying the problems that motivate
it (particularly the Bar-Hillel–Carnap paradox and the deduction scandal) the paper articulates
the central commitments of the TSSI: the General Definition of Information (GDI), the
veridicality thesis (VT), and the informativeness measure i(P) = 1−[d(P)]². Floridi's dissolution
of both classical puzzles is examined and assessed. The paper then advances three
interconnected objections that press beyond those already established in the literature: (i) the
distinction between 'being informative' and 'being information' – which Floridi deploys to
neutralise the challenge from false but seemingly informative propositions – is shown to be
unstable and unable to discharge the explanatory burden the TSSI places upon it; (ii)
conceptual confusions between metadata, meta-information, data information, and
informational data generate a grounding circularity within the GDI that the
levels-of-abstraction methodology cannot dissolve; and (iii) definite descriptions introduce a
form of referential indeterminacy that destabilises the informativeness measure at its core, and
this is not a peripheral difficulty but one inherent to any theory of information with genuine
pretensions to cover natural-language representations. The paper also positions the TSSI
relative to verisimilitude-based alternatives (Frické, D'Alfonso, Cevolani) and closes by
sketching, in deliberately prospective terms, a direction for development based on graded
adequacy and contextual fitness.
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