Информация как общенаучное и философское понятие: основные подходы к определению

Abstract

One of the main goals of the contemporary philosophy of information science and the focus for this article is the classification and systematization of basic approaches on how to define such a richly detailed concept as «information». It is proposed to draw a line between the commonplace understanding of information on the one hand side and the philosophical and general academic approaches to its study on the other. As noted in the article, information was considered from a philosophical standpoint most predominantly in Soviet philosophy. The basic philosophical concepts of information as substantial, attributive, and functional were distinguished and continue to hold meaning today. Mathematics (as a probability/statistical concept) became the basis of the first scientific theories of information that attached special meaning to the quantitative aspects of information and identified the concepts of both information and «the amount of information». Since 1950, research interest has shifted to the study of information’s qualitative and axiological aspects, which are expressed in the formation of the semantic and vital theory of information. In the 1980-90s, synergetic concepts of information that synthesized the quantitative and qualitative approaches began to emerge. Currently, information as a category is being actively developed by researchers from the natural, technical, and social sciences, along with those from the humanities, which in turn calls for its philosophical reconceptualization and for the identification of its essential properties.