The following few paragraphs where prompted from a discussion with a colleague of mine about the philosophical link to/from information science.
Well, I think that any practical disciplines or field of study is definitely informed by some philosophical discourse, even when the discipline itself does not acknowledge it, or does not seem to see it. In this sense, the field of Information Science(s)/Studies seems to lack an acknowledged philosophical grounding, even thought there are some obvious links of philosophical discourse. Imagine, many books and articles regarding information science do not emphasize the philosophical links (or if they do, they do so scantly, superficially and individualistically), or just start with practical issues, as if the phenomena treated by information science become part of the discourse just like that? Part of the phenomena treated by a discipline or field of study do emerge from practical problem, however, we should not neglect the phenomena that could arise from the philosophical discourse. The philosophical link might not be an obvious one, or it might not seem as a valuable enterprise worth research, thus, what would be the point in pursuing such a link for scholarly work. However, there could as well be very beneficial links.
Understanding the philosophical fundamentals/groundings that have informed and are informing information science/studies (implicitly or explicitly) might lead to a better understanding of the common elements that give rise (or are constitutive elements) to the phenomena treated by information science, thus, might provide us with a more coherent framework to treat such phenomena... to be continued...
no, inasmuch as is needs it, it is there.
Hi Jeremny,
Not sure I got your point. Are you saying that there are clearly identifiable / traceable / accountable philosophical groundings for information science(s)/studies?
Also, another issue which I didn't mention in my post is regarding theoretical groundings of information science(s)/studies. Here as well, there are theories regarding separate research focuses (information retrieval, information seeking, information behaviors, etc...). However, these sound like theoretical frameworks for various sub-disciplines of information studies rather than Information Science (singular). What is that 'thing' that ties all the information sciences (plural) together, besides for the fact that they all claim to be dealing with the 'thing' called 'information' - which is not necessarily defined the same across the various concentrations and research areas within information science/studies.