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ABSTRACT
EXAMINATION OF THE SYSTEMIC PROPERTIES AND FORMS of interaction that characterize classification and categorization reveals fundamental syntactic differences between the structure of classification systems and the structure of categorization systems. These distinctions lead to meaningful differences in the contexts within which information can be apprehended and influence the semantic information available to the individual. Structural and semantic differences between classification and categorization are differences that make a difference in the information environment by influencing the functional activities of an information system and by contributing to its constitution as an information environment.
INTRODUCTION
Many different and sometimes conflicting responses can be made to the question "What is information?" Floridi (in press) identifies three broad categories intended to elucidate the predominant approaches to understanding the ambiguous phenomenon called information: information as reality (or ecological information), information for reality (or instructional information), and information about reality (or semantic information). The approach adopted here is that information is "differences that make a difference" (Bateson, 1979, p. 99). It is an emergent property-the result of meaningful differences-inherently semantic and therefore about reality.
Analysis of the syntactic differences that distinguish systems of classification from systems of categorization can contribute to a philosophy of information (PI) because these distinctions portend significant consequences for the processes that contribute to what Floridi (2002) describes as the "dynamics of information": "(i) the constitution and modelling of information environments, including their systemic properties, forms of interaction, internal developments etc.; (ii) information life cycles, i.e., the series of various stages in form and functional activity through which information can pass . . . and (iii) computation, both in the Turing-machine sense of algorithmic processing and in the wider sense of information processing" (p. 15. emphasis in original). Examination of the systemic properties and forms of interaction that characterize classification and categorization reveals fundamental differences in their respective organizational structures-differences that influence the functional activities of an information system and contribute to its constitution as an information environment.
The argument elaborated here is that fundamental syntactic distinctions exist between the structure of classification systems and the structure of categorization systems; that these distinctions lead to meaningful differences in the contexts within which information can be apprehended; and that these differences, in turn, influence the semantic information-the...