Orientalism and/as Information: The Indifference That Makes a Difference

In a recent work inspired by Borgman's [1] approach to exploring issues at the intersection of information and reality, Chapman [2] outlined a framework for thinking about issues at the intersection of information and religion, viz. information about religion, information for religion, and information as religion. This framework might be complemented by another in which the same issues – that is, information and religion – are reflexively engaged, viz. religion about information, religion for information, and religion as information. However, irrespective of which framework is engaged, in attempting to consider such intersections there is a need to consider how terms should be framed – that is, what 'information' and 'religion' means in each framework. In an earlier work [3] which introduced a reflexive hermeneutic framework wherein race is considered from an information-theoretical perspective and information is considered from a critical race-theoretical perspective, genealogical links between Bateson's [4] conceptualization of (a unit of) information as "a difference that makes a difference" and Kantian notions of difference were briefly explored. It was shown that a growing body of critical race philosophy scholarship has demonstrated, somewhat controversially, Kant's seminal contribution to what might be described as a modern 'scientific' concept of race. By way of reference to his writings on philosophical anthropology, which describe non-European 'races' in explicitly racist terms (as ontologically-inferior in some sense), it was argued that, insofar as Kant's thinking on race / racism might not be accidental but rather essential to his philosophy – more specifically, his epistemology – it is possible that Kantian racism informs the