Classifications and concepts: towards an elementary theory of knowledge interaction

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2012-0092
Published date10 May 2013
Pages360-383
Date10 May 2013
AuthorRichard P. Smiraglia,Charles van den Heuvel
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Library & information science
Classifications and concepts:
towards an elementary theory of
knowledge interaction
Richard P. Smiraglia
Information Organization Research Group, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, and
Charles van den Heuvel
Huygens Institute for the History of The Netherlands, The Hague,
The Netherlands
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to outline the central role of concepts in the knowledge universe, and the
intertwining roles of works, instantiations, and documents. In particular the authors are interested in
ontological and epistemological aspects of concepts and in the question to which extent there is a need
for natural languages to link concepts to create meaningful patterns.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors describe the quest for the smallest elements of
knowledge from a historical perspective. They focus on the metaphor of the universe of knowledge and
its impact on classification and retrieval of concepts. They outline the major components of an
elementary theory of knowledge interaction.
Findings The paper outlines the major components of an elementary theory of knowledge
interaction that is based on the structure of knowledge rather than on the content of documents, in
which semantics becomes not a matter of synonymous concepts, but rather of coordinating knowledge
structures. The evidence is derived from existing empirical research.
Originality/value – The paper shifts the bases for knowledge organization from a search for a
universal order to an understanding of a universal structure within which many context-dependent
orders are possible.
Keywords Concept theory,Classification, History of informationscience, Information management,
Information retrieval languages,Universe of knowledge, Instantiation,Information retrieval
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
In Weaving the Web Tim Berners-Lee (2000, pp. 35-36) refers to the study of small
objects in physics to create simple rules for global systems in his future visions of the
world wide web and the semantic web:
One of the beautiful things about physics is its ongoing quest to find simple rules that
describe the behavior of very small objects. Once found, these rules can often be scaled up to
describe the behavior of monumental systems in the real world. For example, by
understanding how two molecules of a gas interact when they collide, scientists using
suitable mathematics can deduce how billions of billions of gas molecules – say, the earth’s
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The authors owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Thomas M. Dousa for his advice and counsel,
and for his very thorough reading of the drafts of this paper.
JDOC
69,3
360
Received 3 February 2011
Revised 12 May 2012
10 July 2012
Accepted 11 July 2012
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 69 No. 3, 2013
pp. 360-383
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-07-2012-0092
atmosphere – will change. This allows them to analyze global weather patterns, and thus
predict the weather. If rules governing hypertext links between servers and browsers stayed
simple, then our web of a few documents could grow to a global web.
Berners-Lee’s explanation of the potential growth of the global web of knowledge by
using a metaphor from physics to understand the complexity of monumental systems
in the real world by analyzing small objects stands in a very long historical tradition.
Since Antiquity observations of the order of the cosmos have been used to explain the
order of universal knowledge. Discussions on the substance of the universe played a
role in the use of metaphors in the rising discipline of library science at the end of the
nineteenth century to explain classification. In recent studies we returned to these
metaphors and questioned their historical readings based on a transition from universe
of knowledge to universe of concept systems (van den Heuvel and Smiraglia, 2010;
Smiraglia and van den Heuvel, 2011; Smiraglia et al., 2011). From the existing
historiography in library and information science so far it becomes clear that before we
can speak of a classification theory the relationship between classification and
concepts in knowledge organization needs to be reexamined. How can it be that the
order of that which is known is dependent on the behavior of an unexplained
phenomenon? And yet that is where the domain of knowledge organization finds itself.
Hjørland (2009) made a valuable attempt to formulate the outline of a
“concept-theory”. However, we claim that a successful application of such a theory
can only be validated in the context of a larger framework of elementary structures of
knowledge. Earlier we sketched such a framework focusing on the UDC, that we reuse
here for the analysis of theoretical views on classifications (Smiraglia et al., 2011).
Components of elementary structures of knowledge
Hjørland (2009) signals the problem of definition of “concept.” Indeed, competing
definitions and various propositions for synonyms or description appear in the
literature on classification. It is impossible to match notions of “concept” exactly with
terms such as ideas, facets, isolates or elements, which often have different meanings in
various classification systems and that are just used implicitly by classificationists in
their theories. Nevertheless, we need some sort of overview of attempts in which one
has tried to map notions of concepts and components of elementary structures of
knowledge in various classification systems to enable the validation of an elementary
theory of knowledge interaction. Here we discuss notions of elementary components in
the work of Paul Otlet (1868-1944). In particular a typescript with the title: “Structure
and classification of knowledge. General considerations and synoptic table” [Structure
et Classification des Connaissances. Considerations Generales et Tableau Synoptique]
of March 13th, 1928 is of interest since it discusses Otlet’s theoretical interpretations of
various component of knowledge, which he could not include in the UDC, or
“documentary classification” as he called it in this context, but could be used in
“preparation of its revision”[1].
Relations between elementary structures of knowledge
Hjørland states that concepts can only be understood in context. The same applies to
what we described above as “components of elementarystructures of knowledge”. If we
cannot exactly match the various notions of terms of which concepts are built up, we
might at least try to describe the relations between the elementary structures of
knowledge and their design to come to higher levels of concreteness. From linguistic
Classifications
and concepts
361

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