If you remember from before I was discussing Philosophy as a discipline and its problems in classification theory. Here is the fruits of that discussion.

The paper in good even as an introduction to the theoretical foundations of Bliss’ classification, as well as a discussion of education warrant or consensus in general classification schemes.

Warning, this is long. Get the PDF to print if you wish.

Abstract

The following paper examines the problems of Philosophy as a discipline in general bibliographic classifications based on educational consensus. Through an examination of the first edition of Bliss’ Bibliographic Classification (BC1) and its basis in a theory of a pedagogical order, the following problems are addressed: philosophy and its relation to other disciplines, the distinction between literature and science in philosophy, and the distinction between primary and secondary works in philosophy. Concludes that Bliss’ extensive use of alternative locations, particularly in the main class of Philosophy, represents Bliss’ inability to successfully deal with these issues.

Introduction

The order of classes based on academic disciplines is understood to be the main organizing principle of general bibliographic classification systems (Beghtol, 1998). Furthermore, while other general classifications may not explicitly acknowledge their consideration of educational warrant or hold it as their main organizing principle, they do all take into consideration the needs of the academic library (Beghtol, 1986). However, how successful are they at mapping these academic disciplines? The discipline of Philosophy presents particular problems for library classification: while it can at once be seen as the theoretical foundation of knowledge in general, it also touches on all the other disciplines, questioning their theoretical assumptions (Bliss, 1939, p. 80; Langridge, 1976, p.61) . To illustrate these problems, this paper will present a detailed examination of Class A in the first edition of the Bibliographic Classification (BC1) and its theoretical foundations in the works of Henry Bliss. In doing so the following three problems will be addressed:

1. Philosophy and its relation to other disciplines: while Philosophy may have its own theoretical problems, much of what is discussed in Philosophy departments touches on the subjects of other disciplines. Should these be discussions correlated with the main class of Philosophy or distributed amongst these individual subjects?
2. Philosophy as literature, Philosophy as science: Philosophy is both the the investigation of reality as well as the study of and dialogue with past philosophical writing. This presents a choice between organizing philosophical works by the topic under investigation or by author/historical period.
3. Primary works, secondary works: Opposed to other disciplines such as history or art, criticism in Philosophy is at the same time both derivative and original. To critique the work of another philosopher is to do philosophy. By what criteria do we judge a philosophical writer worthy of his or her own place in the schedules or decide to correlate these critical works with their corresponding authors/topics?

While many of these difficulties have been raised, by both Bliss himself (1929, p. 299) and by more recent authors (Langridge, 1976), the problem of these choices has largely been left to the discretion of the classifier through alternative locations, thereby increasing the possibilities for disorder. No sufficient solutions have been suggested, and we will conclude that there are no satisfactory conclusions when working with a single notation system. Later improvements will do much to reign in the level of variability introduced by BC1 through the use of alternative locations, but none of these issues can be completely dismissed.

The Organization of Knowledge and Educational Warrant

For Bliss the order of the academic disciplines is the ultimate culmination of the historical development of knowledge as well as the ultimate expression of the logical order inherent in nature, and classifications consistent with this order will have a higher educational value (Bliss, 1929, p. 115). Part IV of his Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences documents that progressive development, from the first divisions of philosophy into Physics, Ethics and Logic, through the medieval Trivium and Quadrivium and the Enlightenment Encyclopdie, to our contemporary order as exemplified in Bliss’ own system. For Bliss this developmental order, exhibited by gradual developments from more general subjects to the more specific, follows the logical order of the sciences which are themselves gradated by speciality. This order in turn follows the evolutionary order in nature, which exists for the positivist and realist Bliss in a sublime regularity and symmetry (1929, p. 185).

Scientists and philosophers recognize and intuit this inherent order, and over time this order as exhibited by the disciplines becomes more stable to the point of approaching permanence (Bliss, 1929, p.221). As this order approaches stability, new sciences develop only as reorganizations of minor distinctions, while the main structures of that order—the central concepts and problems—remain constant (Bliss, 1929, p. 209). Bliss seems ambivalent to whether this pedagogic order is the same as the logical and developmental orders, at once arguing this is a “false simplification,” while later arguing that the pedagogical order closely parallels all other orders (1929, pp. 226–7). The pedagogical order, and the educational system supported by it, exists as an expression of the social mind and therefore must contain within it not only our present ideas but also the past history of those ideas in all their organizational forms (Bliss, 1929, p. 227). As these ideas become more stable, the order and consensus of science and education becomes “more dominant and more permanent” (Bliss, 1939, p.37).

The library itself should mimic this pedagogical order: it exists in miniature as the citadel in the city that is the university (Bliss, 1929, p. 115). Beyond just a philosophical principle, the correlation between the successive orders of nature, knowledge, education and the ideal organization of the library is a principle of efficiency. That is, because books are collocated based on the inherent orders of knowledge and the sciences, when a user goes to retrieve material they necessarily will be choosing from a systematically arranged group of subjects. And as any foray into the world of knowledge naturally falls into previously delineated and unchanging categories, a researcher is less likely to travel between shelves and floors where they may become “impatient” (Bliss, 1939, p. 31). The efficiency of collocation is understood to be the key principle of library classification; Bliss’ originality concerns the relation of that collocation to the educational consensus.

The example Bliss gives is of Education (Bliss, 1939, pp. 33-4), which is main class J. It can be assumed that a user looking for works concerning Education would be more interested in works on Anthropology (H), Psychology (I) and Sociology (a subclass of K) then Astronomy (D) or Jurisprudence (S). No system can be exact, and every system distributes some concepts as it collects others. However, Bliss argues that a system constructed on lines based in the educational consensus and the pedagogical order will provide the maximum efficiency possible, as these relations cohere to the natural system in nature. It is true, as Rafferty (2001) notes, that a classificationist’s motivations of pragmatism often hide an ideological and philosophical bias. However, for Bliss there is no distinction between the philosophical and pragmatic: a library classification following “true” philosophical principles is inherently efficient for the reasons explored above.

Criticisms

This theory of educational consensus does present some problems, primarily the fact that Bliss’ main classes based on academic disciplines are mutually exclusive and relatively unchanging. This is partially a fault of his progressive view of science and research: Bliss saw such contemporary developments such as Psychology and Sociology as only further specializations of the Philosophies of Mind and Human Nature respectively, and did not acknowledge their own unique methods and discourses which had developed. Not simply a differentiation of subject matter, it is this change of discursive method which supports the actual distinctions between the academic disciplines. Pierce (1991) outlines how new disciplines are formed through the development of conceptual and methodological boundaries to the exclusion of outsiders, both amateurs and those from other disciplines. Scholars who treat similar subjects from different fields are excluded not on the basis of knowledge of those subjects, but on differences of academic culture. However, Pierce is right to consider the fact that when information professionals suggest sources, they should do so on the basis of the seeker’s home discipline, because sources from related disciplines may be methodologically deficient for those users even if topically relevant.

A related problem is the concept of interdisciplinarity, which Beghtol (1998) argues makes this structural principle of universal bibliographic classification systems inadequate. She argues that such systems will need to adapt in a hospitable way as interdisciplinarity becomes a major source of new research and knowledge creation. The solution to this problem in BC1 is to make extensive use of alternative locations. This is clearly not sufficient for the current proliferation of interdisciplinary approaches and disciplines, and Bliss’ use of alternative location was particularly unworkable even in his contemporary period.

BC1 and the Problems of Philosophy

The introduction to BC1 argues that the system outlined is consistent with the systems of education as expressed in their “institutions, curricula, and programs” (Bliss, 1940, p. 21). A system organized on those principles should, in Bliss’ conception, provide maximum efficiency in retrieving documents. However, examining the first class of the system, Philosophy and General Science, we can find two particular problems. First, the class has almost no resemblance to Philosophy as it is discussed in the curricula and programs of the university. Second, the class presents almost no rational order to the alternative locations available for the organization of philosophical works.

As a preliminary, if we are to except a direct correlation between main classes and subject-disciplines, we would have to argue that the inclusion of General Science in this class is a result of a limit of notation (a fault Bliss often charges to Dewey, for instance (Bliss, 1939, pp. 201 ff)). Bliss argues for their close correlation, which may or may not be valid, although it may be desirable to keep Logic with Philosophy and form a separate class with the remainder of Mathematics and General Science. For our purposes we are interested in Philosophy as a subject-discipline specifically and its classification and not the distinction between Philosophy and General Science.

Limited to what is properly understood as the discipline of Philosophy, BC1 presents us with no less than four and as many as five ways of organizing the subject: (a) historically by periods and schools in AA–AD, (b) history and criticism (what I will call here secondary works) in AA–AD and original works by philosophers (primary works) alphabetically in A5, (c) like (b) but with the more topical works arranged by subject in AF and AH, (d) like (c) but with works treating philosophical movements or views at AG, or (e) original works alphabetically in A5, with biographical works in A4 and historical surveys in A3 as in AA–AD “but less elaborately.” (Bliss, 1940, p. 166). Furthermore, the schedules include alternative locations for Psychology at AI and Religion and Ethics at AJ, while outlining notation for “Relation of Philosophy to x” for a number of topics under AF, not to be confused with “philosophical treatments of x” which are distributed throughout the schedules, although difference between the two is not entirely clear.

This disorganization is partially due to the difficulties present in classifying philosophical works. The solution, in the case of Bliss, is to allow for many alternative locations in order to give the classifier the maximum amount of flexibility. A quick examination of Class A can see that such numbers of alternative locations are far from sufficient solutions to the problems inherent in organizing Philosophy.

Philosophy and its relation to other disciplines

Amongst this mass of alternative locations, there are only three subjects which are proper to Philosophy: Epistemology, Ontology and Cosmology, all three being subsumed under the general heading Metaphysics (1929, p. 255). However, when looking at a list of common undergraduate courses (see Appendix) we notice that many particular subjects are missing, such as Aesthetics, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of History and other “Philosophies of”. We would expect to see these collocated with other philosophical topics in a classification system based on educational consensus. While Bliss does argue that it is difficult to make a distinction between a branch of philosophy and any one of the special sciences (1929, p. 256), he ultimately suggests that these individual philosophical topics are more efficiently classed with their related subject-disciplines, for instance Ethics, which he sees as closely related with Religion (1929, p. 289).

It is curious why, after arguing for the principle of educational consensus, Bliss chooses to places these philosophical discussions under each discipline in opposition to the main class of Philosophy. And while he does make provisions for Religion, Ethics and Psychology through alternative locations, it is curious why he does not do so for topics with equally valid connections to Philosophy, such as Aesthetics, which, it could be argued, has more in common with theories of Epistemology than discussions of specific works of art.

Such a division would necessitate that multiple works by extremely prolific and systematic philosophers would be distributed not simply throughout a single class but throughout the entire library, giving an extreme situation where a student looking for works of a particular philosopher would be literally forced to walk from A to Z to retrieve them. Ultimately, we must conclude that both of these organizations would present efficiencies in some cases and deficiencies in others, a conclusion which throws into question Bliss’ confidence in the pedagogical order as a necessary guarantor of efficiency. However, if we are to consider the position of the discipline of Philosophy and its subordinate subjects, clearly the collocation of those subjects with a multitude of disciplines cannot be efficient for those beginning in Philosophy and making their way to disparate shelves.

Philosophy as literature, Philosophy as science

Distinguishing the methodologies of the humanities from those of the other sciences, Langridge (1976) argues that the method in the humanities is “scholarship,” or the study of works and writings against the study of nature (p. 30). Also, in opposition to science, the humanities tend to work cumulatively, giving ancient writings equal weight beside the most recent works. Philosophy too, classed as a humanity, also works in this way. Not only does it consider those texts from the beginnings of its tradition alongside more modern works, but a major method in philosophy is the detailed exposition of other philosophers and their works. However, at the same time, philosophy tends to be “scientific,” if we take this to mean it engages in investigations of reality and strives towards truth progressively, often with little regard to the investigations of others. The opposite conception of philosophy often denies the very possibility of truth. This view of philosophy sees the historical development of philosophy as a dialogue of thinkers speaking throughout history. This dialogue reflects the problems inherent in classifying fictional literature more so than those of scientific topics.

In this first conception we could make the argument that philosophical works would be better classed historically and by author. The second conception of philosophy would see philosophical works classed with the topics they investigate. It is important to note that departments of philosophy are organized along both principles, offering both historical and topical classes (see Appendix). It is clear that Bliss understands philosophy in the second conception, as a system of generalized thought, grounded on knowledge, criticizing intuitive beliefs (1939, p. 80) and striving for truth. At the same time, there are points where he seems to suggest that philosophy is no more than “rational literature” (1929, p. 299; 1939, p. 80). As noted, BC1 allows for both ways of ordering. Ultimately, this problem of classification is related to the educational consensus in Philosophy itself, which clearly divides itself between the literary and scientific methods, and often searches for and denies the possibility of truth in the same department.

Primary works, secondary works

A further distinction between the humanities and sciences made by Langridge (1976) is the humanities’ concern with “specimens,” that is, particular instantiation of human creativity in concrete form—novels, plays, paintings etc. (p. 33). In opposition to this is criticism, the discussion of those works. This distinction is problematic in Philosophy, however, where all but the most general and elementary critical works are in some way a “specimen,” a further example of philosophical discourse, and often original in their own right even when discussing other writers. At the same time, there are clearly works whose specific purpose is solely the derivative discussion of another philosophical work. Those of the first variety would require their own location, either by author or by topic, with those works which are clearly secondary collocated with them. On what basis are we to make distinctions between the two?

Bliss is next to silent on this problem, although he does make a comment in the Introduction to BC1 suggesting that philosophy and writings about philosophy sometimes merge into one another, although the majority of the time things are “clear enough” (1940, p. 75). Langridge (1976) as well draws attention to this problem, concluding that only those who have made an “original contribution” need be classified by name, the others subsumed under the appropriate topic/author (p. 65). This is clearly a problem, as it places too much judgement in the hands of the classifier, an argument Langridge anticipates. He argues that this difficulty only arises for contemporary writers, the reputation of older writers having been already established (p. 65).

The solution to this difficulty is not so clear, as there are often times were we would want an original commentary collocated both with its author and with the subject of its attention. A classic example is Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle, many of which exhibit originality in their own right. A more modern example is that of Heidegger’s (1994) lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Read on their own these works exhibit their own originality; read with their “primary” works these commentaries can be understood on a different and equally important level. Neither can be said to be more important than the other. Clearly, if possible, we would want to class them in both locations at once. This is only a possibility in the classified catalogue, where we can assign multiple notations and subject headings, but is not possible on the physical shelf.

Discussion

These three problems—the problem of other disciplines, the distinction between literature and science, and the distinction between primary and secondary works—are inherent to Philosophy as a form of literature. As we have seen, the solution BC1 presents for this problem is to allocate alternative locations wherever possible to allow for flexibility in cataloguing. Each library would be forced to set its own policies in deciding which of the five schemes of classifying philosophy would be chosen, but would then not be able to share its records with any other library who had chosen either of the others or some amalgamation of them. Without the aid of computers this lack of standardization prevented BC1 from gaining a wide acceptance. Furthermore, while we have used Bliss’ classification as a backdrop to illustrate these problems, they are not unique to BC1 (Langridge, 1976, p.62).

The question could be raised, particularly when looking at the first problem, whether Philosophy is not some kind of interdisciplinary subject. We would hesitate to give it that designation, as Philosophy is better understood logically and historically as the rational foundations of the various disciplines. “Philosophy of Law” is not really any form combination or interaction between two subject domains (Beghtol, 1998), nor can it adequately be described as the treatment of law from a philosophical perspective. The philosophy of a discipline ideally provides the most general theoretical foundations of any subject: not just how one should design, evaluate and institute law, but what “law” means in the first place, what its essence is. We hesitate to add another prefix, and an overused one at that, to the field, but if we had to name it we would call Philosophy a meta-discipline, which deals with the highest levels of abstraction in each discipline.

Regardless of the nature of Philosophy’s relation with the other disciplines, proponents of faceted systems will argue that any such relations can be expressed (Beghtol, 1998). As a sequel to BC1, the second edition of Class A/AL (Mills & Broughton, 1991) does make some improvements over the original through the use of facets, but does not completely counteract all the problems presented in classifying Philosophy. In consideration of the first problem, BC2 does make some improvements in classing Philosophies of Language, Mind and Ethics with Philosophy, although the editors have made the decision to continue to keep Aesthetics group with the Arts.

The second and third problems of Philosophy are addressed by the use of facets in BC2. In reference to the second, the facet order of BC2 gives preference to branches of Philosophy and then to historical schools in the citation order, which would bring together all works concerning Epistemology first, then order them by historical treatment. Thirdly, the Viewpoint facet allows for the discussion of one philosopher by, or from the viewpoint of, a second philosopher. While these are improvements over the complications of alternative locations in BC1, they still do not completely solve the problems outlined. For instance, while it is an improvement to be able to group together works related to Averroes’ treatment of Aristotle, this still does not satisfy the desire to see all the works of Averroes, including the commentaries, grouped together as original works. Furthermore those who see all of the works of a single author or historical period as a unity would be disappointed by the facet order of BC2.

Conclusions

This paper has discussed the problems for library classifications in classifying Philosophy as a discipline. First outlining its foundations in educational warrant, Bliss’ Bibliographic Classification was examined to illustrate the following problems: the relationship between Philosophy and other disciplines, the competing conceptions of Philosophy as literature and science, and the relation between primary and secondary works in Philosophy. While the later BC2 has addressed some of these problems, particularly because of its strengths as a faceted system, many of these same issues continue to present problems for library classification.

There are no ultimate solutions to these problems, at least when limited to shelf ordering and singular notations. The conclusion drawn by Bliss is to leave the decisions open to each individual library through the extensive use of alternative locations, not only in Class A but throughout the entire schedules, for “special subjects everywhere” (1940, p. 23). Under the rubric of allowing for multiple viewpoints and purposes, Bliss has abrogated his responsibility for coming to a clear decision about these three problems of Philosophy. There is no clear suggestion on how the class should be ordered, and it is questionable how efficient a class with five different ways of ordering can truly be. Clearly, however, such a large number of alternative locations throughout the system make a strong case against any single order of knowledge as an objective standard for basing such a system.

References

Beghtol, C.  (1986).  Semantic validity: Concepts of warrant in bibliographic classification systems.  Library resources & technical services, 30(2), 109–125.

Beghtol, C.  (1998).  Knowledge domains: Multidisciplinarity and bibliographic classification systems.  Knowledge Organization, 25(1/2), 1–12.

Bliss, H. E.  (1929).  The organization of knowledge and the system of the sciences.  New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Bliss, H. E.  (1939).  The organization of knowledge in libraries and the subject-approach to books.  New York: The H. W. Wilson Company.

Bliss, H. E.  (1940).  A bibliographic classification (Vol. 1).  New York: The H. W. Wilson Company.

Heidegger, M.  (1994).  Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (P. Emad & K. Maly, Trans.).  Indiana: University Press.

Langridge, D. W.  (1976).  Classification and indexing in the humanities.  London: Buttersworths.

Mills, J., & Broughton, V. (Eds.).  (1991).  Bliss bibliographic classification: Class A/AL Philosophy and Logic (2nd ed.).  London: Bowker-Saur.

Pierce, S. J.  (1991).  Subject areas, disciplines, and the concept of authority.  LISR, 13, 21–35.

Rafferty, P.  (2001).  The representation of knowledge in library classification schemes.  Knowledge Organization, 28(4), 180–191.

University of Toronto.  (2006).  2006-2007 Faculty of Arts and Sciences calendar: Philosophy courses.    Retrieved March 1, 2007 from Faculty of Arts and Science Website: http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/crs_phl.htm.

Appendix

Intermediate Undergraduate Philosophy Classes at the University of Toronto 2006/2007

Early Greek Philosophy Ancient Philosophy After Aristotle Bases of Cognition Plato Aristotle Augustine Aquinas Topics in Medieval Philosophy The Rationalists The Empiricists Kant 19th-Century German Philosophy Hegel Marx and Marxism Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory Phenomenology Heidegger Contemporary Continental Philosophy The Analytic Tradition Wittgenstein Metaphysics Epistemology Issues in Philosophy of Religion Islamic Philosophy Topics in Chinese Philosophy Jewish Philosophy Issues in Philosophy of Mind Freedom and Human Action Minds and Machines Women in Western Political Thought Metalogic Intermediate Logic Philosophy of Mathematics Modal Logic Set Theory Revolution in Science Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Natural Science Philosophy of Physics Philosophy of Biology Philosophy of History Political Philosophy Issues in Philosophy of Law Issues in Environmental Ethics Ethics War and Morality Global Bioethics Ethics and Medical Research Ethics: Death and Dying Ethics and Mental Health Ethics, Genetics and Reproduction Issues in Aesthetics Literature and Philosophy Markets and Morals

If we are building a library or bibliographic classification, then Philosophy presents a problem, particularly if we are building our classification on the lines of consensus with science and education, that is, matching our main classes to the university disciplines.

1. What is the relationship between Philosophy and the other disciplines? How is X related to the Philosophy of X? Should Aesthetics, the philosophy of the beautiful, be classed with Art? Bliss does does so, feeling this collocation is efficient. Yet, given the rule of consensus, is it more worth wild to keep these discussions with philosophy?

2. What is the nature of philosophical writing? At one hand, it aims at Truth and is written as non-fiction. Yet, at the same time, a great bulk of what philosophy does is comment on and dialogue with other philosophers; in this way it resembles literature. Should we therefore class philosophy by topic? Or should we arrange it alphabetically by author? Or, to see the dialogue, arrange it by broad historical periods?

3. What is the nature of secondary writing in Philosophy? In most disciplines, literary criticism for instance, we separate the act of creating literature and writing about literature. However, in almost all cases, writing about philosophers is itself doing philosophy. Except if we were writing the most general survey, adding one’s own commentary and interpretation is itself philosophizing. Are we to keep all secondary commentaries along with their primary texts? What about Averroes’ commentary on Aristotle, worth reading in its own write, or Heidegger’s commentaries on Hegel and Schelling? When does a commentator not deserve their own attention? What about if we are writing about multiple philosophers, even in the same micro-document (an essay in a book of essays)?

For instance, my partner, she insists on placing the travel mugs in the same drawer with the tupperware containers. Classes, in classification theory, are grouped based on similar properties and distinguished from co-ordinate classes based on an unlike property. Her idea, as far as I can tell every morning, is that travel mugs have lids, are used outside the house, and are not made of glass.

I, on the other hand, continue to move them to the cupboard with the glasses and china mugs, on the basis that they are also made to hold coffee and tea, and they are not made to hold solids.

Think there is a solution to these different paradigms of hot beverage container storage? Nope.

I just picked up the latest issue of KO here, and there is a really good article for people interested in the internal classification of websites.

One point which seems so obvious to me now is the idea of faceted categorizations of blog posts, or faceted folksonomies. Looking at the Italian cite Biblioatipici they use a set of seven fundamental categories, in between the number set out by Ranganathan and the Classification Research Group (CRG): Entities, Products, Instruments, Agents, Space and Time. Subclasses are entered freely under these.

So, here I am overjoyed, a way to cut a balance between pre- and post-cordinated order, right. Seems I am not the first one to make that connection.

I guess del.icio.us has that ability, but I never really made the connection between theory and practice, or the slightly different jargons on the web and in the literature.

A good article, discusses DCC and JITA as well.

My professor is Clare Beghtol who I actually enjoyed in Bibliographic Control. I will discuss this more later, but right now I am preparing a presentation about the first edition of Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC1), plus a 12-15 page paper to follow a week later. The class is dealing with all the major systems, including Colon Classification, and later thesauri, folksonomies and classification on the web. And it is not dumbed down but totally theoretical. Later I have a 30 page research paper.

I need a good day to digest Bliss’ two books, The Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences and The Organization of Knowledge in Libraries before I write about him. However, as well I have to go through all four volumes of BC1 and critique the system, including its tables and index.

Sounds dry, but you don’t know how excited I am.

Ruby Graph Library save this
by lflemmer to ruby boost graph library … saved by 18 other people … 1 hour ago

There, you see, library.  Even the most basic set of subject headings would give me Libraries and Information Science—Libraries opposed to Computers—Software—Libraries.  And that is not say that sometimes when I click on a subject heading in the OPAC there are books that don’t really belong, but not to this quantity or degree of difference in subjects.

It seems to me that if tagging is going to work as a information retrieval tool it will have to overcome simple problems such as this.  I don’t see how any level of social input as well will help this semantic distinction, because both labels apply equally well in both cases.  It is not as if I am demanding programmers stop calling reusable snippets of code “libraries,” I just want to not see their links any more.

This is not a theoretical pronouncement, but the statement of an annoyance.  And if anyone has a good way to get all of the programming libraries off my page I am all ears.

Elaine Peterson has written a very interesting article looking at some of the philosophical contingencies of user tagging of folksonomy, something which I think is very necessary and I was happy to see.

In her introduction she makes the important point that, regardless of what one’s metaphysical or ontological beliefs are, for classification purposes, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction must apply. A book cannot be both A and not-A if we considering its classification. She rightly notes: “It is irrelevant that digital items can reside in more than one place, since one is talking about a classification scheme, not about the items themselves.”

However, I disagree with her second introductory point, that the cataloguer, like the librarian, should be neutral and follow the intent of the author. It is questionable, in the first place, whether we can even access the intent of the author (see Foucault, Barthes, Derrida). Nevertheless, as cataloguers and librarians our charge is not the book, but the user, and we should look at things from their perspective. Our “neutrality” does not come from following the author–creation mythologies are not in science, they are in religion; Hannibal Lecter’s guide to kidneys and fava beans is not under culinary arts, but deviant psychology. Thus Peterson’s assertion: “the goal is to recognize the author’s intent over others’ interpretation,” is flawed. There is a social aspect to classification: no matter how much the author wishes or believes, a fictional account cannot be placed in the non-fiction section.

She then goes on about folksonomies, noting their oft repeated benefits and detriments, and makes the claim that “philosophical relativism appears to be the underlying philosophy behind folksonomies.” Beyond synonym and typographical errors, it is possible that users might tag an item with directly contrary tags, violating Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction. Her example, a picture of a white horse could be tagged both “black horse” and “white horse.” In her view this is detrimental to searching and retrieval.

The critique I can give to her position is that classification schemes give only the illusion of order and hierarchy where it doesn’t truly exist. We all know that classifications have their own cultural–i.e. relativist–biases. What we don’t like to admit is that these classification systems come from not only group discussion and agreement amongst professionals, but also the cultural environment where the system is developed. And societies will cover over the fact that the classification systems used to define its reality have no fundamental basis (Foucault). Peterson doesn’t consider the possibility that reality is relativist, thereby making “traditional” classification are static, possibly not reflective of current cultural beliefs, or even the tool of dominate power structures. This is not something I am arguing is true, mind you, but traditional classifications do have their own philosophical problems.

Which is exactly why controlled and natural vocabulary classifications should live together, within one bibliographic record. This is all possible within the OPAC. Not only for the fact that folksonomies can highlight the inherent biases within a classification system, but for the very fact that cataloguers make mistakes, they miss classify, or they miss a subject heading which could apply. And, at the same time, controlled vocabularies can serve as a stable reference point.

However, I think Peterson’s article raises some excellent points for discussion, and I recommend you read it.