Information in the Study of Human Interaction

Keith Devlin, Duska Rosenberg

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)

    Abstract

    This chapter describes one way that information - as a conceptual entity - may be used (by an analyst, as a tool) in a study of human interaction. (Actually, most of what we say will apply to interaction in general, for instance human- machine interaction, but our examples will be taken from human interaction.) The "analyst" here may be a professional social scientist (as is the case for our main technical example), or could be an ordinary person trying to make sense of a particular interaction. When applied to such latter cases, our article also provides insight into much of the common talk about "information" that takes place in today's "information society", and in that way our essay can be viewed as an analysis of the rational structure that lies behind (and is implicit in) the modern, information-oriented view of the world.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationElsevier Science Publishers
    Subtitle of host publicationHandbook of Philosophy of Science
    EditorsPieter Adriaans, Johan van Benthem
    Place of PublicationNorth-Holland
    Pages685 - 709
    Number of pages24
    Volume8
    Edition1
    ISBN (Electronic)978-0-444-51726-5
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2008

    Publication series

    NameHandbook of Philosophy of Science
    PublisherElsevier

    Keywords

    • philosophy
    • computer science
    • informatics
    • logic
    • Linguistics
    • Cognitive Science

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