more on interdisciplinarity
August 29, 2006
It made sense to me to follow Julie Thompson Klein’s Notes Toward a Social Epistemology of Transdisciplinarity with Moti Nissani’s Ten Cheers for Interdisciplinarity: The Case for Interdisciplinary Knowledge and Research.
It’s a neat piece, making many familiar claims from the postmodern camp. The general thrust of the article is that it is no longer possible to have systemic view of knowledge, but that working across disciplines has many benefits.
The following top-10 list is from the abstract:
1. Creativity often requires interdisciplinary knowledge
2. Immigrants often make important contributions to their new field
3. Disciplinarians often commit errors which can be best detected by people familiar with two or more disciplines
5. Many intellectual, social, and practical problems require interdisicplinary approaches
6. Interdisciplinary knowledge and research serve to remind us of the unity-of-knowledge ideal.
7. Interdisciplinarians enjoy a greater flexibility in their research.
8. More so than narrow disciplinarians, interdisciplinarians often treat themselves to the intellectual equivalent of traveling in new lands.
9. Interdisciplinarians may help breach communication gaps in the modern academy, thereby helping to mobilize its enormous intellectual resources in the cause of greater social rationality and justice.
10. By bridging fragmented disciplines, interdisciplinarians s might play a role in the defense of academic freedom.
article: social epistemology of transdisciplinarity
August 24, 2006
Julie Thompson Klein’s Notes Toward a Social Epistemology of Transdisciplinarity has the potential to be really useful in a LIS context. One of the knowledge/library issues I’ve been particularly interested in, is how the linear arrangement of information in a physical library can help or hinder a research question depending on the disciplinary context the researcher is coming from.
I really experienced this when working on my annotated bibliography for reference class. Studying the feminist critique of science lead to a lot of resources in the social sciences. Those, nearly, uniformly presented a similar accepted knowledge base. There were a few texts in the sciences section, too, but those came at the subject from an entirely different perspective. A feminist researcher approaching the questions would get a very different perspective on the issue depending on their academic area of interest.
Thompson Klein discusses how the world, in general, is more complex and interconnected than it once was, and we’re seeing that in academic subjects as well. She cited women’s studies, systems thinking, peace studies, cognitive science, etc, as examples of new disciplines that are interdisciplinary. Thompson Klein also pointed out that traditional areas of study sometimes borrow from other fields. For example, an organisim can be considered in terms of culture, biology, and chemistry. A political system can be considered in terms of political science, economics, or sociology. In a sense, this project is borrowing from other disciplines to consider the more traditional aspects of LIS.
Also, Thompson Klein discusses “social epistemology of knowledge practices.” This phrase might actually be a good phrase for what I’m investigating. This could encompass the online social technologies that are interesting to me as well. The blogging chapter hasn’t been published yet, by the way. I’m looking into it.
article: individual knowers & community
August 23, 2006
Capurro, Rafael. “Hermeneutics and the Phenomenon of Information.” Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Technology. Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 19. Research in Philosophy and Technology: JAI/Elsevier Inc., 2000.
The paper starts with a basic question: “What is information?”
It follows with an answer: “Some characteristics of the end of modernity are:
(a) abandonment of the primacy of rational or scientific thought as qualitatively superior to all other types of discourse
(b) abandonment of the idea of human subjectivity as opposed to objectivity, in which intersubjectivity and contextuality play only minor roles
(c) abandonment of the (Platonic) idea of human knowledge as something separate from the knower.”
This discussion pretty much fits with my understanding of the state of postmodern epistemology.
The author discusses “fragmented knowledge,” which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately… particularly in terms of search. It’s possible to use Google to find spellings, addresses, definitions, and other quick information without ever leaving the google page to see the site where the information resides. What does this decontextualization mean for the information seeker? Does one implicitly trust all websites because Google just finds them? How does fragmented knowledge impact people’s ability to have complex thoughts?
Another area I found particularly interesting was the discussion of knowers within the context of their individual communities. This individual community member interacts with the bibliographic database creator or web designer, even though the creator or designer may belong to an entirely different community. Does this even matter in an era when culture is becoming more homogonous?
Anyway, it was an interesting and short article!
encyclopedia entries: social and feminist epistemology
August 22, 2006
My interest in social epistemology goes back to my childhood. It rears its head whenever it gets a chance. Most recently was in my reference class, when I was able to write a thorough annotated bibliography on feminist epistemology (PDF). At this early stage in the project, I wanted to review the more theoretical aspects, so I checked out the amazing Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to see what the experts there had to say.
Goldman, Alvin “Social Epistemology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2006/entries/epistemology-social/.
Since this is a thorough and extensive explanation of social epistemology, including a history, classical approaches, anti-classical approaches, theoretical questions, and institutional design questions, I thought I’d touch on the more unusual issues addressed. In particular, I was interested in Goldman’s inclusion of technology and blogs in the discussion of social epistemology. Though not directly tied to library and information studies, I do see room for a connection to technology and blogs in this project. I was speaking with colleagues today about how immediate the information environment is for our patrons, and this is what they now expect from us. We talked about how Wikipedia really is good for some things. I wondered about my friend who relies on her cell phone/internet at all hours in all places for all information. How does this change the nature of information for our users? How does this impact what services we should be offering them? It looks like Goldman has an article on blogging out, so I’m going to look for that tomorrow.
Anderson, Elizabeth “Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2006/entries/feminism-epistemology/.
My most recent research in social epistemology leaned towards feminist epistemology, so I wanted to touch on that topic again in the context of this project. Anderson’s article focused on situated knowers, standpoint theory, feminist postmodernism, feminist empiricism, criticism of science, feminist science, critiques and conceptions of objectivity, epistemic authority (forthcoming), and trends in feminist epistemology. After thinking about the nature of knowledge in an electronic world, I was looking for some of this in the feminist camp (particularly from standpoint theory or postmodernism), but didn’t get much.
Anderson does point out feminist epistemologists question how we can arrange scientific practices so that science and technology serve women’s interests. Feminist epistemologists study how the structures of science and technology may disadvantage women. She also points out that the production of knowledge (science and technology) might not be useful for people in subordinate positions and it might actually reinforce gender and other social hierarchies.
All of this is immensely interesting to me, and might be relevant for a LIS study of epistemology, particularly how the production of classification systems reinforces gender and other social hierarchies (I’ve done a paper on that (PDF), too). I’m not sure that it’s the angle I want to take with this project, but its interesting nonetheless.
book: Knowledge and Knowing
August 20, 2006
Budd, John. Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science: A Philosophical Framework. Lanham, MD:Scarecrow Press. 2001.
Notes from my reading:
The book’s introduction includes the following quote, one that partially explains my interest in the topic:
“Pragmatism, however, does not mean a dismissal of thought and reflection. Some philosophers, most notably Richard Rorty, claim that, effectively, pragmatism trumps epistemology, that there is no point to a theory of knowledge; what is important is discovering what works. The error in this claim is the assumption that epistemology cannot be pragmatic, that examining knowledge cannot help us find the most effective action. The thought and reflection in LIS contributes to effective praxis. Throughout this book I’ll explore the essential relationship between thought and praxis” (page 3).
I am specifically interested in philosophical issues surrounding information literacy. A better understanding of truth and knowledge is helpful when guiding people to the information they need. Understanding the social, political, and economic dynamics of information are necessary in a field that colleges, organizes, classifies, provides, and instructs people in their quest for information. This introductory statement grounded the book, for me, in a way that made it appear useful for my research interests.
The book is arranged in two major parts. One is exploring the genealogy of ideas. The very first chapter was essentially a recap of my modern philosophy course in college, but without the depth. The book also touches on a number of interesting disciplines including sociology, biology, psychology, and economics. The second section of the book rejects the use of scientism in LIS and makes an argument that LIS work should be done in the school of hermeneutical phenomenology.
I felt that this book is a great introduction for someone with little philosophy or epistemology background. For those with a background in the fields, it’s a little too lacking in some areas and could go more in depth. I also felt that in some areas he displayed plenty of rigor in making his arguments, but in others, the rigor was lacking. I missed my philosophy (proper) texts, where arguments are clearly laid out, and each point is decisively proven or disproved. Part of the problem might have been that the audience of the book was too broad. It was for both theoretical and practical LIS workers, coming from any academic background. This problem could have been partially solved had the book been broken into several books, each chapter been longer (the book was under 400 pages), or if a good use of footnotes was provided with references for further information.
Despite my minor complaints, I feel this book was an excellent starting point for my project. It was good to have a refresher course in the appropriate philosophers. It was a quick read. And it did give me a good grounding.
Chapter 5, “Knowledge and Knowing in LIS,” was the most appropriate for my topic. Budd starts by explaining that LIS is seen as a social science, but has argued through the book that scientism isn’t the most appropriate method for LIS. This is where he argues for hermeneutic phenomenology. He also specifically cites Jesse Shera and Margaret Egan, Patrick Wilson, and S. D. Neill as LIS writers who concern themselves with social epistemology.
Budd admits the topic is esoteric but says, “If we are to comprehend fully why someone bothers to formulate a query, why people seek “information,” then we have to understand what it is we can know about the process of structuring a query aimed at finding a meaningful answer, and about the process of responding to the query. In other words, it is knowledge that defines the activities that take place in libraries and other, similar, environments” (page 204). And that’s a good enough argument for me to feel good about this independent study.
