Arguments for philosophical realism in library and information science

Library Trends, Wntr, 2004 by Birger Hjorland

   a degenerating research programme. That is, specific theories
   developed within the programme were continuously refuted and
   constantly replaced with weaker, more trivial, and more ad hoc ones;
   fundamental notions such as "information," "mental models," and
   "interactivity" (14) became vaguer and vaguer, until virtually
   anything could qualify; and awkward refuting results came to be
   explained in terms of assumptions which broke the internal
   constraints of the research programme itself. In other words, I want
   to suggest that the poverty of Cognitivism's achievements in helping
   us to understand information behavior and information phenomena was
   the result of its false theoretical assumptions. (Modified version of
   Briskman, op. cit.)

These parallels between cognitive views in psychology and in library and information science (LIS) are examined further next.

REALISM AND ANTIREALISM IN LIS

Antirealism is widespread in LIS, not as an explicit position but as an underlying tendency in most research. We encounter, for example, this tendency in research on relevance and on knowledge organization (KO) and in the assumptions underlying much research in information seeking and information retrieval (IR).

The nature of this antirealism can be illustrated by an example. Our knowledge of reality is often produced by specialists in society. (15) Our geographical knowledge is, for example, represented by maps, which are produced by geographers; our medical knowledge is often produced by biomedical researchers and our zoological knowledge by zoologists, etc. Whether Copenhagen is a part of Sweden or not should not be decided by the users of an information system but rather should be decided by consulting a cognitive authority in geography. Whether or not a certain substance is relevant as a cure for cancer is ultimately decided in medical research, not by asking patients or users of medical services. (16) The validity--and thus the relevance--of a document claiming that a certain substance is relevant as a cure for cancer is also ultimately decided in medical research, not by asking users of information services. (17,18) Thus we have a central realist claim: A given document may be relevant to a given purpose, whether or not the user believes this to be so. (19)

Both a reality and beliefs about that reality exist. In information science, most research activities have in recent decades been directed toward user preferences and attitudes, not toward the basis for the knowledge claims represented in information systems. Most relevance research seems to assume that the relevance of given kinds of information can be established by studying the relevance criteria of the users. This is clearly an idealist position, although probably nobody would like to admit that. This is not to say that one should always trust experts--they may have their own interests or views. (20) It is rather to claim that relevance is not a subjective phenomenon but rather an objective one. To be engaged in how to identify what is relevant is to be engaged in scientific arguments, ultimately in epistemology (for a more detailed discussion of the realist position in relevance research, see Hjorland, 2000a and Hjorland & Sejer Christensen, 2002).