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Conflations in the Causal Account of Information Undermine the Parity Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Barton Moffatt
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Abstract

The received view in philosophy of biology is that there is a well-understood, philosophically rigorous account of information—causal information. I argue that this view is mistaken. Causal information is fatally undermined by misinterpretations and conflations between distinct independent accounts of information. As a result, philosophical arguments based on causal information are deeply flawed. I end by briefly considering what a correct application of the relevant accounts of information would look like in the biological context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 284 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for the invaluable feedback of Ken Waters, Ronald Giere, Alan Love, Mark Borrello, Chuck Stieg, Susan Hawthorne, Katie Plaisance, Toben Lafrancois, John Bickle, Lynn Holt, Trisha Philips, Robert Thompson, and Grieg Mulberry. In addition, I would like to especially thank Paul Griffiths for his comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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