Informativist

Informativist is a label used in philosophy of language and epistemology to denote a family of theories that locate semantic content and epistemic value primarily in informational aspects of propositions, utterances, or evidence.

In semantics, informativists contend that the meaning of a sentence consists largely of the information it commits a hearer to update their epistemic state about the world. The central notion is informativeness: an utterance is informative to the extent that it yields new information relative to the listener's prior assumptions. This contrasts with strictly truth-conditional theories, which tie content to conditions under which sentences are true.

In epistemology, informativism characterizes knowledge and justification as grounded in information exchange. Some variants appeal to information-theoretic ideas such as information gain or reduction of uncertainty, while others couch the account in more qualitative terms about evidential support and relevance to decision making.

Critics argue that informativism can underplay context, pragmatics, social factors, and the role of use in meaning. They also note difficulties in modeling information content for vague, ambiguous, or context-dependent sentences.

Although the term informativist is used in several discussions, it is not a single established school with a fixed doctrine. It often serves as a descriptive label for approaches that treat information content as central to semantics or epistemology rather than as a mere accessory to truth conditions.

See also: information theory; information-based semantics; epistemology; pragmatic theories of meaning; evidence-based justification.