[Fis] Data - Reflection - Information

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Terry and colleagues,

>"Language is rather the special case, the most unusual communicative 
>adaptation to ever have evolved, and one that grows out of and depends 
>on informationa/semiotic capacities shared with other species and with 
>biology in general."
Let me try to argue in favor of "meaning", "language", and "discursive 
knowledge", precisely because they provide the "differentia specifica" 
of mankind. "Meaning" can be provided by non-humans such as animals or 
networks, but distinguishing between the information content and the 
meaning of a message requires a discourse. The discourse enables us to 
codify the meaning of the information at the supra-individual level. 
Discursive knowledge is based on further codification of this 
intersubjective meaning. All categories used, for example, in this 
discussion are codified in scholarly discourses. The discourse(s) 
provide(s) the top of the hierarchy that controls given the cybernetic 
principle that construction is bottom up and control top-down.

Husserl uses "intentionality" and "intersubjective intentionality" 
instead of "meaning". Perhaps, this has advantages; but I am not so sure 
that the difference is more than semantic. In Cartesian Meditations 
(1929) he argues that this intersubjective intentionality provides us 
with the basis of an empirical philosophy of science. The sciences do 
not begin with observations, but with the specification of expectations 
in discourses. A predator also observes his prey, but in scholarly 
discourses, systematic observations serve the update of codified (that 
is, theoretical) expectations.

Best,
Loet

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