Once more unto the breach. “Overcoming epistemology” and librarianship’s de facto Deweyan Pragmatism
| Published date | 13 March 2017 |
| Date | 13 March 2017 |
| Pages | 210-223 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2016-0052 |
| Author | John Buschman |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Once more unto the breach
“Overcoming epistemology”and librarianship’s
de facto Deweyan Pragmatism
John Buschman
Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore an approach to epistemology which allows a portion of
library and information science (LIS) to coherently explain its social and intellectual contributions, and to
overcome some of the problems of epistemology that LIS encounters.
Design/methodology/approach –Literature based conceptual analysis of the problems of epistemology
in LIS and the productive approach of Deweyan Pragmatism.
Findings –LIS’problemswith epistemologycome from a variety of sources:epistemologyitself, the combining
of librarianshipwith informationscience, and thesearch for a common groundingof the information professions,
their tools and their institutions. No such theoretical foundation is possible, but Deweyan Pragmatism offers
a sensible, practical explanationfor the historical development and practices of librarianship.
Originality/value –Pragmatism has been deployed in portions of LIS, but the full implications and the “fit”
of Dewey’s ideas for librarianship and its epistemology are productive explorations.
Keywords Theory, Pragmatism, John Dewey, Librarianship, Epistemology, Critique
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Library and information science (LIS) has enjoyed a “revival of interest in creating a new
[…] philosophy”( Jones, 2008, p. 482); a “revolution is afoot in theorizing information”
such that there is now a “valid and respectable field of formal information theory based on
propositions, algorithms, uncertainty, truth statements, and the like”(Buckland, 2005,
pp. 684-686) –which includes a vigorous examination of its epistemology (Furner, 2010;
Fallis, 2006; Carlin, 2014). As testament to the validity of these assertions, “epistemology”
as a keyword search within this journal alone yields 133 results as of this writing –many of
them quite recent and utilizing heretofore novel and inventive approaches in LIS. Briefly,
epistemology is that part of philosophy “concerned with […] the nature, origins, scope, and
limits of human knowledge, its presuppositions and basis, […] [and] the study of
justification […] of beliefs we have on the basis of some given body of evidence”(Dick, 1999,
p. 306). Or more succinctly, how do we know what we know, or that we know it? In turn, LIS
makes certain claims, produces research, and advice which rests on a knowledge base –its
way of knowing (or epistemology), and Dick (1999, 2013) rightly claims the importance of
epistemological assumptions and raising difficult questions about them in the field.
Certainly the number of surveys of epistemological approaches in LIS again validates his
point (in addition to the studies cited see for example Benoît, 2002; Budd, 2001, 2008;
Fisher et al., 2005; Harris, 1986b; Hjørland, 2005; Trosow, 2001).
Why “overcoming”epistemology?
If epistemology is an important, interesting, and flourishing area of inquiry in what has been
widely thought of as an under-theorized LIS research culture, why “overcome”it? There are
a number of approaches to that question which build the case in a specific sense. Historically
the term refers to much more than the brief definition quoted above, encompassing four
different fields or problems: obtaining and justifying knowledge; empirical investigations of
knowing (both human and animal) across a variety of disciplines; philosophical analysis of
“knowing”and related ideas (consciousness, belief, etc.); and overcoming the “problem of the
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 2, 2017
pp. 210-223
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-04-2016-0052
Received 30 April 2016
Revised 9 September 2016
Accepted 18 September 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
210
JD
73,2
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