ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that there are some insights to Fred Dretske's theory of meaning in his Knowledge and the Flow of Information are worth defending, and that they have to do with his concept of information. Another purpose of the chapter is to elucidate the distinction between the concept of information defended here and the one established in the mathematical theory of communication, and to highlight the importance of this distinction. The chapter begins with a brief outline of the notion of information and its role in an organism's behaviour on a general, introductory level. It then digs more deeply into the issue of natural information, trying to recover the main insights of Dretske's account of natural information and discussing some of its difficulties. The chapter concludes with a consideration of some implications of this view with respect to the phenomenon of intentionality.
