Informativists

Informativists are scholars across philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and information theory who analyze communication, reasoning, and explanation through the lens of informativeness rather than truth alone. They treat a proposition as informative to the extent it reduces uncertainty given a prior belief state, or as providing expected information gain to a listener or learner.

The term informativist appears in late 20th and early 21st century discussions about the goals of explanation and communication. It is not a single school but a family of approaches sharing attention to information content, context dependence, and the probabilistic nature of knowledge.

Core ideas include valuing informativeness as the primary criterion for explanatory success, argumentative strength, and effective communication. Proponents use information-theoretic measures such as surprisal and information gain, and emphasize the role of prior beliefs and context in assessing informativeness. They distinguish informative content from mere truth conditions or verifiability, arguing that what matters for understanding is how much new information a statement provides to an audience.

Methodologically, informativists employ formal models from Bayesian reasoning and information theory. Applications appear in pragmatic linguistics, semantic theory, education design, and artificial intelligence, where systems are evaluated by their ability to deliver relevant information efficiently and adjust to receivers’ knowledge states.

Critics contend that an emphasis on information can overlook normative, ethical, and social dimensions of communication, and that measuring informativeness is difficult or context-sensitive. Despite criticisms, informativist ideas influence areas of epistemology, philosophy of language, information design, and AI communication research.

See also information theory, epistemology, Bayesian reasoning.