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p.1 the rational management of conflicts is impossible in the absence of information about the capabilities and intentions of one's opponents. Obtaining reports of such matters becomes an indispensable goal.
p.1 Reports of one sort or another use our prime instruments for informed thinking, seeing that virtually the whole of what we know about what goes on in the world comes to us through reports.
p.2 What actually passes for knowledge among us in everyday life is information that enjoys reasonable assurance even if not categorical certainty. And most of this comes to us through reports of various kinds. Accordingly, the epistemology of reporting is - and should be - of paramount concern for us.
p.5 There is only so much information that people can acquire on their own... People crave informative reporting. They eagerly await the delivery of newspapers and the airing of newscasts; they subscribe to newsletters; they surf the Internet.
p.6-7 The significance of reports varies enormously. Many are trivial and routine... Other reports communicate cataclysmic news items... Some reportage opens new worlds to view... Then too there is the manifold of so-called announcements
p.7 Defective information is the bane of reporting... Whatever question we may have in view... can be answered imperfectly.
p.17 Reports are fragile and vulnerable things whose value is readily compromised in many ways.
p.23 If a source is to supply useful information, then this source must have three key characteristics. First, the source must be knowledgeable: their information on the matter at issue must be pertinent, correct, and accurate. Second, the source must be candid: he or she must be prepared to transmit the information they actually have in a comprehensive and accurate way, avoiding errors of omission and commission. And third, the source must be accessible through employing a channel of transmission and appropriately conveys their reports.
p.41 The infinitely complex relationship between reality as it is and what it is thought to be constitutes one of the most challenging issues of information reportage.
p.42 Clearly, the greater the discrepancy between appearance and reality, the bigger the problems that arise. And the more our question-resolutions enter into the details of things, the more error prone we become.
p.51 A report can only do its proper work when it is recognizable amid the welter of events.
p.52 And the most useful reports are those that provide action-guiding information.
p.54 Whatever humans do can be done badly. And this holds as much for reporting as for anything else.
p.92 people's actions are determined by what they think
p.94 Cognitive importance accordingly is an index of the extent to which one thing deserves more attention (time, effort, energy) than another. The crucial thing here is inherent in the question of how prominent a place in the sun a report deserves... The cognitive importance of the information conveyed in a report will hinge on the matter of the extent of its alteration in the preexisting state of knowledge. Does it add little to what is already known or does it add a great deal?
[JLJ - Perhaps this also applies to the diagnostic tests and weighting of significant yet subtle cues we perform almost subconsciously while playing a complex game of strategy. But does cognitive importance depend only on the alteration in the preexisting state of knowledge? Important information can also critically confirm a plan of action and allow us to relax or to prepare fallback positions or to continue exploring and investigating unlikely alternatives in the event that one one of them unexpectedly turns out to be of positive benefit.]
p.95 The cognitive importance of a report turns on how substantial a revision in our body of relevant beliefs is wrought by our accepting it; that is, the extent to which its endorsement would cause geological tremors reverberating across the cognitive landscape.
[JLJ - Not necessarily to just 'a revision in our body of relevant beliefs' -cognitive importance extends to anything used as an input to an impending decision on how to 'go on' in or within our current predicament. Such a report can confirm an existing plan of action in a dire predicament - and have just as important an impact.]
p.98 Hindsight often reveals that apparent importance - importance as we judge it here and now - is something decidedly different from real importance; that is, importance as it will eventually emerge to view with the accession of further and fuller information.
p.99 The prominence of sporting competitions or games like chess or contract bridge, for example, shows that things can be extremely interesting to people without being very important in themselves.
[JLJ - In my philosophy, an important element of being is reveling in the present - and this can take many forms, such as spectator sports or participative sporting games or events of all kinds. IMHO, Rescher attempts to shoehorn his concept of rationality into the very fiber of being and ends up unable to adequately explain certain vital aspects of living. Maybe you will read what I have written, Mr. Rescher, and free yourself from your self-imposed cult of rationality.]
p.103 The talent for ampliative reasoning - of drawing plausible conclusions from insufficiently informative premises - is a crucial asset for report interpretation.
p.141 Information that remains inert and unused is effectively pointless.
[JLJ - Not so - let's say we receive a report that we are not sure how to handle. We might initially lay it aside until say another report comes in that is similar. We might take the two reports together and use them as a basis for action. On the other hand, if time passes and the original report cannot be confirmed, we might just not act on it. So you see, in this case, simply because we do not immediately act on a report does not mean that it is 'effectively pointless.' We can advance to a state where we are one step away from action, or poised to act. This is hardly pointless.]
p.142 Reports are valued for their utility: the most valued reports are those whose information provides incentive and guidance to actions.
p.146 The potential of a report being used as a guide for action is accordingly one of its key features.
p.157 Reports do not provide information as such: what they provide is purported information whose correctness and utility is always up or consideration.
[JLJ - Reports, technically, represent only the work of a reporter who is working their own or their employer's agenda. Their agenda might align with yours or it might not. A quick read of the evening news stories online clearly reveals the liberal or conservative bias of the reporter, who on the surface, appears to be reporting the 'news' without bias, but instead is doing so with 'spin' - a twist of the truth to push their own political agenda.]
p.158 Evaluating reports can be a complex business. There is an inevitable evidential gap between the supportive evidence we have and the objectively factual claims we base upon it. The information actually at our disposal in such matters substantiates and confirms our claims but does not altogether establish them. What it affords is not the categorical certainty of assured truth but some (at best high) degree of plausibility or probability.
[JLJ - One should not wait until one receives a report to decide on the trustworthiness or observing skills of the reporter. If one sends a reporter to the field to report, one should test the reporter to report on known entities - these 'reports' can be baselined and analyzed to determine the bias or observing skills of the reporter.]
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