Social Epistemology in Library and Information Studies

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.