“Is this document relevant?…probably”

Crestani, Fábio; Lalmas, Mounia; Rijsbergen, C. J. van; Campbell, I.

doi:10.1145/299917.299920

“…S-theories clearly do not try to define, but rather presuppose, the fundamental concept of relevance understood as a relation between some information and an informee. The problem is accurately described in Crestani et al [1998]: "The concept of relevance is arguably the fundamental concept of IR. In the above presented model we purposely avoid giving a formal definition of relevance.…”

Section: Epistemic Vs Causal Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding epistemic relevance

Floridi¹

2011

The Philosophy of Information

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Agents require a constant flow, and a high level of processing, of relevant semantic information, in order to interact successfully among themselves and with the environment in which they are embedded. Standard theories of information, however, are silent on the nature of epistemic relevance. In this paper, a subjectivist interpretation of epistemic relevance is developed and defended. It is based on a counterfactual and metatheoretical analysis of the degree of relevance of some semantic information i to an informee/agent a, as a function of the accuracy of i understood as an answer to a query q, given the probability that q might be asked by a. This interpretation of epistemic relevance vindicates a strongly semantic theory of information, according to which semantic information encapsulates truth. It accounts satisfactorily for several important applications and interpretations of the concept of relevant information in a variety of philosophical areas. And it interfaces successfully with current philosophical interpretations of causal and logical relevance.

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“…The problem is accurately described in Crestani et al [1998]: "The concept of relevance is arguably the fundamental concept of IR. In the above presented model we purposely avoid giving a formal definition of relevance.…”

Section: Epistemic Vs Causal Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Epistemic Relevance

Floridi

¹

2007

Erkenn

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Agents require a constant flow, and a high level of processing, of relevant semantic information, in order to interact successfully among themselves and with the environment in which they are embedded. Standard theories of information, however, are silent on the nature of epistemic relevance. In this paper, a subjectivist interpretation of epistemic relevance is developed and defended. It is based on a counterfactual and metatheoretical analysis of the degree of relevance of some semantic information i to an informee/agent a, as a function of the accuracy of i understood as an answer to a query q, given the probability that q might be asked by a. This interpretation of epistemic relevance vindicates a strongly semantic theory of information, according to which semantic information encapsulates truth. It accounts satisfactorily for several important applications and interpretations of the concept of relevant information in a variety of philosophical areas. And it interfaces successfully with current philosophical interpretations of causal and logical relevance.

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“…Q'' as material implication. 4 The conditional probabilities are also commonly used in the probabilistic models (see (Crestani, Lalmas, Rijsbergen, & Campbell, 1998), for an overview). The two aspects can also be found in most probabilistic models, formulated as P ðQjDÞ and P ðDjQÞ.…”

Section: The Probabilistic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%