Classification, rhetoric, and the classificatory horizon

Library Trends, Wntr, 2004 by Stephen Paling

ABSTRACT

BIBLIOGRAPHY PROVIDES A COMPELLING VANTAGE from which to study the interconnection of classification, rhetoric, and the making of knowledge. Bibliography, and the related activities of classification and retrieval, bears a direct relationship to textual studies and rhetoric. The paper examines this relationship by briefly tracing the development of bibliography forward into issues concomitant with the emergence of classification for retrieval. A striking similarity to problems raised in rhetoric and which spring from common concerns and intellectual sources is demonstrated around Gadamer's notion of intellectual horizon. Classification takes place within a horizon of material conditions and social constraints that are best viewed through a hermeneutic or deconstructive lens, termed the "classificatory horizon."

INTRODUCTION

Current scholarly work in classification and rhetoric has converged on a remarkably consistent set of ideas about the role of context, history, and material conditions in the dissemination of texts. Specifically, scholarship addressing classification for access bears a direct relationship to scholarship in material rhetoric. It is easiest to understand dais relationship by briefly tracing the development of bibliography and the concerns that development has carried with it into current scholarship in classification for access. These concerns, and scholarly conclusions about them, show a striking similarity to a particular set of problems raised in rhetoric and spring from common concerns and intellectual sources. This paper argues, in part, that classificationists should consider rhetoric a valuable part of what they do, and that rhetoricians should view classification as an underdeveloped part of rhetorical studies.

This paper will relate a set of ideas that have helped shape the related areas of classification and material rhetoric. It will refer to secondary scholarly sources where these ideas have been derived. Many of the ideas spring from common sources, while others represent similar conclusions reached by different paths. All, though, can be understood as grouped around a central idea, the idea of an intellectual horizon. This paper argues that the works in question, taken together, support the idea that classification takes place within a horizon of material conditions and social constraints that are best viewed through a hermeneutic or deconstructive lens. This application of hermeneutics or deconstruction to classification does not represent a grafting of alien ideas onto the study of information but rather the reconvergence of ideas that come from common sources. The idea of intellectual horizons has implications in two areas. First, it can offer us a theoretical understanding of classificatory practices, and second, it also can begin to suggest possible limits to our ability to fully represent texts through classification.

To describe the conclusions reached by these scholars and relate the ways in which they reinforce each other, this paper will take the following steps:

Trace a set of ideas originating in bibliographic scholarship that led to later work in classification and material rhetoric, described in two senses by Seizer and Crowley (1999) as the study of "the material aspects and groundings of language as rhetorical action" and "the rhetorical nature of material realities" (p. 9).

* Briefly describe deconstruction and postmodern hermeneutics and trace their relationship to classification and rhetoric.

* Discuss the recent relationship between classification and rhetoric, particularly in the area of material rhetoric, and posit the idea of a classificatory horizon.

* Discuss similar but independent ideas advanced in the contemporary study of information.

The paper will conclude with a brief summary of these relationships and discuss what they might offer for future scholarship.

EARLY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Besterman (1940) provides us with a concise history of early bibliography, and that history foreshadows contemporary critiques surrounding the implication of classification for access in the use and reception of texts. Besterman begins by distinguishing two basic types of bibliography, systematic and critical. He follows W. W. Greg in defining systematic bibliography as "the classification of individual books according to some guiding principle," or in his own terms, "enumeration and classification of books." Critical bibliography, in contrast, is "the comparative and historical study of their makeup" (Besterman, 1940, p. 1). Besterman argues for a definition that combines elements of the two, labeling a bibliography "a list of books arranged according to some permanent principle" (Besterman, 1940, p. 2). He acknowledges the difficulty inherent in any idea of permanent principles, and questions surrounding permanency and change in texts themselves and the way we classify them is an issue to which we will return.

For the moment, though, the focus should remain on the contrast drawn by Besterman. Systematic bibliography is closely related to classification for access, which arranges texts according to some principle meant to facilitate retrieval. Critical bibliography, in contrast, bears a strong resemblance to editing in its concern for the origin and make-up of texts. In turn, both editing and classification for retrieval eventually point to a particular strand of material rhetoric. Material rhetoric, as a whole, addresses a range of questions surrounding the materiality of discourse, including topics like the rhetoric of public monuments and the rhetoric of the body. The strand of material rhetoric that concerns us here, though, studies the range of accretions, from prefaces to classificatory marks, that are attached to texts and affect the way those texts are used and interpreted. Bibliographic scholars have shown concern for similar issues.