University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Holistic Epistemology and Prospects for Design in the Philosophy of Information

Dick, Archie L.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/133126

Description

Title
Holistic Epistemology and Prospects for Design in the Philosophy of Information
Author(s)
Dick, Archie L.
Issue Date
2024-08
Keyword(s)
holistic epistemology, information, knowledge, perspectivism, philosophy of information
Date of Ingest
2026-04-23T12:38:02-05:00
Abstract
The discipline of library and information science (LIS), conceived narrowly as applied philosophy of information, overlooks a rich tradition of debate and discussion about its holistic epistemological features. For the LIS profession to deliver services that safeguard social values such as equality of access, intellectual freedom, and diversity, its discipline should reconnect information with knowledge and with epistemology as the theory of knowledge. This article critiques conceptions of information not bound to the core features of the LIS profession and its discipline. It evaluates some early and recent conceptions of information connecting it to the profession’s remit of activities and services. LIS theorists’ ideas about holistic epistemology and perspectivism are discussed and evaluated as prospects for design and development.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
Series/Report Name or Number
Volume 73, Issue 1-2, August & November 2024
Type of Resource
text
Genre of Resource
article
Language
eng
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2025 University of Illinois Board of Trustees

Owning Collections

Library Trends 73 (1-2) August & November 2024: Design and the Philosophy of Information [Restricted] PRIMARY
This 2024 special issue of Library Trends was inspired by the contributions of Marcia Bates to our field and discipline. We are very fortunate to have her selected works gathered into three volumes (Bates 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). Thus, the vision for this issue was to treat Bates’s research “protoparadigm” as derived from Thomas Kuhn as a design sounding board, and I invited authors to freely explore these parameters. Additionally, I called for scholarship deriving from the emergence of Chinese information philosophy as another metatheory for LIS. I intentionally left the term “design” as open as possible, with some influence of Floridi’s (2019) definition of philosophy as conceptual design as a directive. Also, Bates (2002) has long called for good design for elements making up retrieval system interfaces and criticized models that do not actually improve information sources for users.