Foundations of Information Science

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Foundations of Information Science

FOUNDATIONSOF INFORMATION SCIENCE
REVIEWAND PERSPECTIVES

RafaelCapurro

Contents Introduction I. Some critical commentsonthree leading paradigmsof information science II. From thecognitive turn to the pragmaticturn III. Informationscience ashermeneutic-rhetoricaldiscipline Notes References

Abstract Threemain epistemological paradigms of information science, namely therepresentationparadigm, the source-channel-receiver paradigm, and the Platonisticparadigm,are criticized. Taking into consideration some basic insights fromhermeneutics(Heidegger, Gadamer) and analytic philosophy (Wittgenstein) a pragmaticfoundation of information science is suggested. Information means thepossibilityof sharing thematically a common world within specific forms of life.Itthus becomes a rhetorical category. Information science is conceived asa hermeneutic-rhetorical discipline that includes aformal-methodologicalas well as a cultural-historical perspective.

Introduction Somethirteenyears ago I made an investigation of the etymological roots of the term information [Capurro 1978]. I (re-)discovered that keytheoriesof Greek ontology and epistemology based on the concepts of typos,idéaand morphé were at the origin of the Latin term informatio.These connotations
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were maintained throughout the Middle Ages butdisappearedas scholastic ontology was superseded by modern science. Sinceapproximatelythe 16th century we find the term information in ordinaryFrench,English, Spanish and Italian in the sense we use it today: 'toinstruct,to furnish with knowledge', whereas the ontological meaning of 'givingform to something' became more and more obsolete. Paradoxically, theepistemologicalmeaning was the basis of the formalization by Shannon and Weaver, whoexplicitlydisregarded the semantic and pragmatic connotations. Informationseemed to lose its connection to the human world, and came to beapplied,as a more or less adequate metaphor, to every kind of process throughwhichsomething is being changed or in-formed. Through the mediationofcybernetics and computer science an inflationary infiltration of thisterminto many sciences (e.g. physics, biology, psychology, sociology) tookplace. The result has been a chaotic discussion between twoextremes:anthropomorphism and reductionism (1). Therise of information science led to a further explosion of this chaos.Schrader[1986, p. 179] counted some 134 notions of information in our field! Atthe same time he observed that, on the one hand, the content of ourdomainwas taken to be defined by the specification of the term information,butthat, on the other, there was almost no reference to the misinformationand negative form its derivatives: "lies, propaganda,misrepresentation,gossip, delusion, hallucination, illusion, mistake, concealment,distortion,embellishment, innuendo, deception." This leads to a "naïve modelof 'information man', which sometimes takes the form of decision-makingman or uncertainty man." (ibid.) Nevertheless, one thing seems to beclear:the notion of information in our field is explicitly referred andrestrictedto the human sphere. This means a(n) (implicit) rejection ofinformationscience in the sense of a super-science whose object is information atall levels of reality. Such a science, without a material ofitsown, would be similar to a general techné, a scienceofsciences, as attributed to the Sophists by Plato in his Charmides[Capurro, 1991]. Whenwe are looking for the foundations of a science, we cannot avoidreflectingon its main concepts. In the case of information science the mainconceptis not information but - man (= man and woman). If we take a look intosome leading paradigms in our field, we observe certain ontologicalpresuppositionshaving their roots in Greek as well as in Modern Philosophy. With theriseof philosophical Hermeneutics and Analytical Philosophy we have gainednew paths of thinking which are, I believe, relevant to the foundationsof information science. Inthis paper I will first briefly describe three main epistemologicalparadigms,which are based on a substantialist view of something called informationas well as on the modern distinction between subject and object[Capurro,1986]. From these I will pass to what I call the cognitiveturn.This view abandons the idea of information as a kind of substanceoutsideof the mind und looks for the phenomenon of human cognition as anecessarycondition for the determination of what can be called information,but fails to consider the pragmatic dimension of human
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existence. Iwillargue in favor of a complementary pragmatic turn by claimingthatinformation is a fundamental dimension of human existence. The question'what is information?' asks for the substantial characteristics ofsomething.But information, taken as a dimension of human existence, is nothingsubstantial.Instead of asking 'what is information?' we should ask 'what isinformation(science) for?' The change over to the second question means a changeofperspective which takes as a starting point the cognitive turnbutgoes beyond it in search of a pragmatic and rhetoricalperspective.

I.Some critical comments on three leading paradigms of information science Followingthe positivist or, as Winograd and Flores call it [1986] (2), rationalistictradition, not onlyinformatics but alsoinformationscience looks for its subject by considering information to besomething objective in the external reality. Thisviewpoint remainsbasic with regard to three main paradigms in our field, namely: -therepresentation paradigm -the source-channel-receiver paradigm -the Platonistic paradigm. Allthree paradigms consider the knowing subject in interaction withsomethingcalled information. This typification leaves aside many nuancesand combinations. It is not my intention now to criticize any specificauthors, but just to delineate some paths of thought when looking forthegroundings of our field (3). Accordingto the representation paradigm human beings are knowers orobserversof an outside reality. The process of knowledge consists of anassimilationof things through their representations in the mind/brain of theknowingsubject. These representations, once processed or codified in ourbrain,can then be communicated to other minds and/or stored and processed inmachines (computers). Human beings are biological informationprocessors.Information is the codified double of reality. Humans can useinformationfor specific rational purposes, but nothing speaks against thehypothesisthat also machines can achieve this level of information processing anduse. Onthis basis information science is concerned with ofrepresentation,codification and rational use of information. the study

The source-channel-receiverparadigm takes thephenomenon ofhuman
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communicationas a metaphor to be applied to different levels of reality. When theycommunicate,human beings, or other kinds of sources and receivers, are said toexchangeinformation. In order for the receiver to understand the meaning of themessage sent by the source, a common stock of signs hast to exist. Butthe exchange of information can be considered only in relationship tothestructure of the message. In this case we speak of syntacticinformation.Cybernetics couples source and receiver dynamically. Constructivismdescribesthe autogeneration of organisms coupled with their own world in asimilarway. There is no world outside to be represented, only theworldas the organism sees or forms it for its own purposes ofsurvival. Underthese premisses information science is primarily concerned with theimpactof information on the receiver. At the same time, receivers are seekersor users of information in order to solve their problems. Finally,the Platonistic paradigm takes an opposite view to theforegoing.Instead of starting with a knowing subject, it looks for something tobeconsidered as information in itself. This is the sphere ofhumanknowledge not as a biological, psychological or sociological processbutas objectivized in non-human carriers. We can call it, paradoxically, materialisticPlatonism . The idealistic version of this paradigm considersknowledgeas something objective in itself, independently of any materialcarrier. Informationscience is supposed to study primarily the world of informationin itself, i.e., to contribute to the analysis and construction ofit. Information has the same ontological status as the laws of logicwithregard to the psychological or biological description of the process ofthinking. There remains the problem of the relationship between this worldand the world of the knowing subject. This is a problem similar to theone posed by the representation paradigm. In its materialisticversion,information science studies information as far as it is materialized incarriers outside the brain, in the form of documents or of theirelectronicsurrogates. The idealistic version considers information as anobjectivebut non-material entity. Allthree paradigms have a long tradition in the history of ideas, but theywere the object of further developments in modern philosophyparticularlywith regard to the difference between the knowing subject as a kind ofsubstance or thing separated from the objects of knowledge(Descartes' res cogitans vs. res extensa), which,accordingto Boss [1975,Fig. 1], led to the subjectivist-objectivist representation of humancommunication,i.e., to the idea, that objects of the outside world arerepresentedin the mind or brain of a subject. Communication means, on this basis,the exchange of information between subjects concerning theirrepresentationsof the outside world objects. The main characteristics of thisphilosophicalparadigm are to be found, in one way or another, in the three leadingparadigmsof our field. Maturana and Varela's constructivism [1980],philosophicalhermeneutics and Wittgenstein's later philosophy criticize this kind ofdichotomic thinking. In the case of constructivist theories the outsideworld becomes formally
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determined by the structure of the living.Withininformation science similar attempts were made, for instance, with thedevelopment of the cognitive viewpoint. From a hermeneuticpointof view cognitivism dislocates knowledge from social praxis.

Fig1: Subjectivist-objectivist representation of human communication (Boss1975) 1a/1b:body of a and b 2a/2b:brain of a and b 3a/3b:psyche (or mind or self) of a and b 4a/4brepresentation of an object (information) of the outside world 5:outside world 6:impression of (or 'in-formation' process from) the object 7:object of the outside world 8a/8b:information exchange between a and b concerning their representationsofthe outside objects

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II.From the cognitive turn to the pragmatic turn Theshiftfrom the "physical or mechanical" paradigm of the Cranfield tests[Ellis1991] to the cognitive turn took place at the beginning of theseventies[Kunz/Rittel, 1972] and particularly with the ASK-Theory developped byBelkin et al. [1982] as well as with Ingwersen's "cognitive viewpoint"[1984]. Belkin's theory refers to an "anomalous state of knowledge" asthe basis of the information retrieval process. The knower isoriginallya non-knower. This is a Socratic insight as well as a hermeneutic one.The non-knower is a partial-knower i.e., an inquirer, whose questionsarebased on a "conceptual state of knowledge" that is part of the "user'simage of the world". The affinity of these terms to some basic ideas ofhermeneutics, for example pre-understanding, is evident, and itwas very soon identified as such [Hollnagel, 1980]. Instead of startingfrom an objectivist consideration of something called informationand its interaction with a sender or receiver, common to all kinds oflivingand non-living systems, the cognitive turn asks for the intrinsicrelationshipbetween the human knower and her/his potential knowledge. Thecognitiveturn led also to a specification of the traditional paradigms in ourfield.But this turn too rests upon the modern subject/object dichotomy, i.e.,it overemphasizes an epistemological view of the relationship betweenmanand world. Knowledge becomes, even more emphatically, a worldinitself. Thisemphasis becomes manifest for instance in Brookes' foundation ofinformationscience. On the basis of Popper's ontology Brookes proposed his"fundamentalequation of information science", where a knowledge structure ismodifiedby information. Information is to be found objectively as"extra-physicalentities which exist only in cognitive [mental or information] spaces."[Brookes, 1980, 1981]. This is, on the hand, an idealistic version ofthePlatonistic paradigm. On the other side, Brookes considers theinteractionbetween subjective and objective knowledge as being reflected in thechangesto be observed in the knowledge structure caused by new information.FollowingRudd [1983] we can ask: "Do we really need World III?" i.e., do wereallyneed a trichotomic Popperian ontology? Hermeneutics and Wittgenstein'slate philosophy criticize some presuppositions underlying ontologicaldichotomiesand trichotomies, without taking the path of monism, i.e., remainingskeptical.By questioning the presuppositions of a "capsule-like psyche" [Boss,1975]and of a represented outside world, hermeneutics offers a newinsightinto the question of how knowledge is being pragmatically constitutedandsocially shared by human beings, whose being is basically abeing-in-the-world-with-others.The empirical study of this phenomenon is at the core of informationscience. Thesefew references to the "cognitive viewpoint in information science" [Belkin,1990] show a tendency in recent discussion of the foundations of ourdiscipline:information is intrinsically connected to the knowledge structure ofhumanbeings. The cognitive viewpoint brings out a founding dimension of ourfield but it remains unsatisfactory as far as the user is consideredprimarilyas a knower. I would like to introduce some hermeneutic concepts inorderto look for a possible solution of the
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difficulties which arise whenthesubject/object dichotomy of modern epistemology is taken for granted inthe cognitive turn. Oneof the key insights of hermeneutics is the holistic (not monistic)approachto the relationship betwenn man and world. This approach is a socialanda pragmatic one. We are not isolated monads, having first a private orsubjective cognitive sphere, separated from the objective one. Languageis not something occurring in the inner sphere of a subject, whoseinteractionswith an outside object lead to inner representations, to becommunicatedthrough signs to other receiver-minds. Wittgenstein's private languageargument has clearly refuted this thesis [Wittgenstein 1984]. Insteadof the modern presupposition of subjectivity as a "psychecapsule"whichwas established in order to describe a theoretical or objective view onthings belonging to a real world, hermeneutics refers to the foundingdimensionof our being-in-the-world-with-others, in the sense of ahistoricaldimension of disclosure of meaning, which conditions (but does notfullydetermine) our understanding of the world including our theories of it.Being prior to our theoretical and/other practical projects, thisdimensionis called pre-understanding. It is the open context ofpossibilitieswithin which our inter-personal life as well as our dealing with thingsand with nature reveals a possible horizon of meaning. Ourbeing-in-the-worldis such that we are not first within our subjectivity and lookafterwardsfor ways of getting out of it, but we are basically open i.e., able tobe addressed, within specific situations, by the meaningfulness ormeaninglessnessof things. At the same time we grasp this openness as a finite one,givenour posterior knowledge of birth as well as our prior knowledge ofdeath.Fig. 2 shows the dimension of shared and limited openness, whichcharacterizesour being-in-the-world.

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Fig.2: Sketch of our being-in-the-world-with-others (Boss 1975) 1:World-openness: open and finite context of possibilities (past, presentand future ones) in their partial and socially mediated 'dis-closure' 2:'closure' or undiscovered and never completely discoverable dimensionofall our foundational efforts 3:'being-outside' sharing thematically with others the meaning of (forinstance:past) things in changing contexts (=circles and crosses) 4,5,6:'being-outside' sharing present things (for instance: a tram) Ourway of being is, according to hermeneutics, different from the one ofotherbeings we know of (e.g. animals, machines). The term existenceisan indicator of this difference, by stressing the sense of beingoutside(ek-). This being outside is originally abeing-outside-with-others.Communication in the sense of sharing together a common world is aspecifictrait of our being-inthe-world. Here lies the existential foundationofinformation science. Information, in an existential-hermeneuticsense,means to thematically and situationally share a common world. If weask for the conditions of possibility of communicating to each otherthepossible meaning of things within specific horizons of understanding,thenthe hermeneutic answer is that we can do this because we already sharea world. Thus, information is not the end product of a representationprocess,or something being transported from one mind to the other, or, finally,something separated from a capsulelike subjectivity, but anexistentialdimension of our being-in-the-world-withothers. Informationis, more precisely, the articulation of a prior pragmatical understandingof a common shared world. This prior understanding, or pre-understanding,remains to a great extent tacit even
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when we articulate it in spoken orwritten form just because, given our finite being, we can never make itfully explicit. One important consequence of this is that, in the caseof scientific thematization of the world, we can never render a fullfoundationof knowledge. Human knowledge is, as theory of science stresses, alwaystentative. This tentative character means, as I argue in [1986], thatknowledge,being basically shared knowledge necessarily refers to limited horizonsof pre-understanding as well as to a community which shares thispre-understanding.Hermeneutics stresses the pragmatic dimension of human existence in thesense that we primarily live within a tacit context before we get theundisturbedfreedom to look at things as if (!) we were not existentiallyconcerned.But, indeed, "primum esse, tum philosophari" (Seneca). We were notaskedbeforehand whether we like to be or not. To be means primarilyhavingto do with things, which is the original meaning of Greek prágmata.We can use this term to denotate a fundamental characteristic of ourbeing-in-the-world,i.e., a characteristic prior to the theoretic subject/object dichotomy.This is also the meaning of Wittgenstein's "forms of life", which arethebasis for our "language games" [1984, p. 23]. Thecognitive turn in information science presupposes this pragmaticdimensionof our being-in-the-world, but it does not make it explicit. Thispragmaticdimension is not a practical as opposed to a theoretical one, becausealsoin our actions we are not void of all preunderstanding but already informedi.e., sharing a common background of un-discovered potentialities forbeing. Thus,information is neither a mentalistic nor just a mind-related conceptbutexpresses a characteristic of our pragmatic way of being. It points tothe dimension of sharing with others thematically different practicaland/ortheoretical possibilities of world disclosure. When we say: 'we store,retrieve, exchange etc. information' we act as if (!) information weresomething out there'. But it is, on the contrary, we who are there,sharing a common world and therefore able to share explicitly withothers,in a process of partial disclosure, the conditions and limits of ourunderstanding.I take the term information in this existential meaning as a basicconceptof information science. Scientificknowledge is the classical field where the creation of a commonpre-understandingis an essential aim in itself. It is not by chance that informationscience,since its very beginning, considered the processes of technologicalmanipulationof scientific or, more generally speaking, professional-orientedknowledge,as its paradigmatic model of shared knowledge, i.e., ofinformation. Thepragmatic turn´ was proposed by Roberts [1982] and Wersig et al. [1982 and 1985] in the eighties. Roberts looks for a behaviouristapproachto "information man". Wersig considers the "actors" within "problematicsituations". The "rational-cognitive treatment of problems" constitutesfor Wersig only one aspect of the problem of rationalization. In otherwords, "information man" cannot be separated from the specificsituationsin which she/he is pragmatically and socially imbedded.
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More radically,"information man" cannot be separated in her/his cognitive functionsfrom,for instance, aesthetic or ethical ones. I believe that these ideasleadto a hermeneutic and rhetorical foundation of information science. Thequestion 'what is information?' asks for substantial characteristics ofsomething. But information, taken as a dimension of human existence, isnothing substantial. Instead of asking: 'what is information?' we canask:'what is information (science) for?' The turn to the second questionmeansa change of perspective. The pragmatic fields of open possibilities areshared contexts, also in the linguistic sense of the word (con-texts),i.e., of thematically shared pre-understanding. The aim of informationscience is to thematize this con-textual dimension taking intoconsiderationprimarily all technical forms of communication as parts of other formsof life. This scientific thematization can take place in aformalmethodologicalas well as in a cultural-historical or pragmatic perspective. I callthefirst an information heuristics or ars quaerendi ' and thesecondinformation hermeneutics. All methods of information retrieval belongtothe first one and are an essential part of our science. But a mereformalistor substantialist view leaves aside the existential groundings i.e.,thenecessary thematization of the historical, cultural, economic etc.dimensionswhich are the pre-conditions for understanding what we mean when wesay:'we store, retrieve, exchange etc. information'. An information economythat seeks to reduce information to an exchange value without takingintoaccount the different forms of life in which it is grounded is no lessdangerous than a blind exploitation of nature. In designing tools wearedesigning, as Winograd and Flores remark [1986, p. xi], "ways ofbeing".This, I think, is a key insight with far-reaching implications forinformationscience studies, which do not forget the pragmatic dimension of theirsubjectmatter. Takinginto consideration the unity of boths aspects, the methodological andthepragmatic, information heuristics and information hermeneutics,informationscience can be considered a sub-discipline of rhetoric.

III.Information science as a hermeneutic-rhetorical discipline Inhis Rhetoric [Rhet. 1358 b] Aristotledistinguishes threekinds of speech: -deliberativespeech (genos symbouleutikon): concerns arguments for or againstsomeone or something, and is related to future actions. -juridical speech (genos dikanikon): concerns charge or defence,and is related to past events.
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-laudatory speech (genos epideiktikon): concerns praise and blameand is mainly related to present situations. Aristotleconnects rhetoric not only to other linguisticmethodologicaldisciplinessuch as logic, dialectic and topic, but also with ethics andpolitics. Thisclassical division of rhetoric embraces, in other words [Schlüter,1978, pp. 22-26], three objectives including their corresponding humancapabilities: - toteach/to inform (docere, informare): concerns reason -to influence/to move (movere): concerns the will (and thefeelings) -to please (delectare): concerns (sensory and sensual)perception Thecharacteristics of good speech (arete tes lexeos) are: -unambiguity(saphe/claritas): the use of clear expressions -commonness (to hellenizein/latinitas): the use of commonexpressions -adequation (to prepon/proprietas): the use of adequateexpressions Inthe case of informative (and deliberative) speech these characteristicscan be achieved with different kinds of figures: argumentative figures(such as: prima facieexamples, comparisons, detailed explanations, judgements,definitions), composition figures (such as anticipations and lookingback),and lexical figures (such as: paradoxes, irony, puns, litotes). Itis easy to see that the negative forms of the informative speech, towhichSchrader refers, cannot be considered as an essential part ofinformationscience as long as such a science is not seen as a subdiscipline ofrhetoric.The crucial point underlying the hermeneutic-rhetorical paradigm ofinformationscience is neither the analogy of information as something physical northe representation of reality within an inner sphere, but therecognitionof the interwovenness of information and misinformation as anexistentialdimension, i.e., as a specific human way of sharing with others theworldopenness. Information and misinformation are, in some way, pseudonyms,i.e. ,they are abbreviations for experiences such as "lies, propaganda,misrepresentation, gossip, delusion, hallucination, illusion, mistake,concealment, distortion, embellishment, innuendo, deception" (Schrader)on the one hand, and of telling the truth, communicating publicly ourconvictionsand ideas, looking for adaequate approaches to all kinds of phenomena,hearing to what others have to say, letting our phantasy create newpossibilitiesof being, developing our sense of reality, cultivating criticalthinking,as well as other capacities such as righteousness, openness, frankness,clarity, helpfulness, and truthfulness, on the other. Bygrasping information and misinformation as a dimension of humanexistence,I am suggesting a distinction with regard to other uses of these terms.This anthropologic (or ontologic) distinction does not imply ananthropocentricview. It criticizes a worldless subjectivity representing the
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things ofthe outside world in an encapsulated mind. To exist means, for humanbeings,to be thrown into a field of possibilities with the capacity ofconceiving and misconceiving not only our own (technological) projects,but also the nature of things that bring themselves forth. Onefundamental reason for the interwovenness of information andmisinformationis precisely the finite structure of human existence, our facticityor thrownness (Heidegger's "Geworfenheit"). Scienceremains fallible and all the information we are supposed to store,retrieveetc. is to be understood within a possible breakdown situation(Winogradand Flores 1986). According to the classical physical paradigmthesesituations should be avoided in order to get relevant results. Forthe hermeneutic-rhetorical approach they are a basis for usersconstructions. Therhetorical distinctions do not intend to separate informative (anddeliberative)speech from the other forms of speech nor to isolate all of them fromethicsand politics. In order to see these connections, for instance betweeninformative,persuasive and pleasant speech in our field, we have but to recallquestionsof data security and copyright, or the persuasive efforts of a hostmarketingdivision or, finally, the efforts to create userfriendly systems. Theideology of a pure informative speech rests upon the disregarding ofitsrhetorical roots. Many of our so-called information systems areremnantsof a pre-pragmatic, utopic view of an ideal language, although or, moreprecisely, because our field has been considering itself as a practicalone, i.e., as one which does not need a theory. Withregard to the formal-methodological questions to be studied against arhetoricalbackground, we are particularly committed in our field toconsideringthe technological or artificial possibilities of the informativespeech.Aristotle distinguishes between non-artificial (atechnoi ) andartificial(entechnoi ) means of persuading (pisteis), thefirstones being the given ones ("such as witnesses, tortures, documents"),whereasthe second are the ones to be produced by the speaker and to beanalyzedtheoretically by rhetoric (Rhet. 1355 b). Information science, as asub-disciplineof rhetoric, studies the different forms of handling artificially i.e.,technologically, shared knowledge. But such handling is, as in the caseof other forms of rhetoric, not just a formal-methodological question,completely independent from ethical and political dimensions. Rhetoricand topic play a basic role in the construction of hypertext databases.For, as Wallmannsberger remarks [1990], non-linearity and associativityimply a conception of human knowledge, where analogy and probabilityarethe key aspects. Contrary to the idea of information as adecontextualizedor situation-independent sphere, a hermeneutic and rhetorical viewstressesthe contextuality (including cultural, aesthetic, ethical, andpoliticaldimensions) of meaning. The pragmatic turn in philosophy, as Philosophical carriedoutby hermeneutics and Wittgenstein's Investigations,has decisive implications for our field. Hypertext and hypermedia aswellas other kinds of intelligent databases and systems, can becalled intelligent as far as they take into considerationdialectical,topical and rhetorical figures. On the background of rhetoric it isalsopossible to
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thematize the connections of these technological mediationsto ethics and politics. Thequestion: What is information science for? is a rhetorical question inthe sense that information science, conceived as a sub-discipline ofrhetoric,implies a double-bind methodology. It must accomplish a selfreflectionin a formal-interpretative as well as in a cultural-historical way. Ithas to resist the temptation to become just a technical heuristics or ametadiscipline embracing ethics and politics. As a sub-discipline ofrhetoricit belongs to other deliberative techniques. As one part of them it isdifferent from juridical and literary forms of speech, but it certainlyimplies aspects of persuasion and pleasure. This relationship betweenrhetoricand aesthetics within information science needs to be more stronglyemphasizedthan I am doing it here. It does not only imply the userfriendlinessorthe ergonomic design of information systems, i.e., the alliance betweeninformation science and information design, as Orna and Stevens remark[1991], but also takes into consideration, much more basically, thebodilyor aesthetic (Greek: aisthesis = perception) dimension of humanexistence. We should study how information technologies influence thebodilypossibilities of the users. We need, in other words, an informationscienceaesthetics closely related to an information science ethics i.e., to acritical analysis of the ways in which power structures are imposed onthe (bodies of the) users or, viceversa, to become aware of thesituationsand conditions in which information technology becomes, individuallyandsocially, an open field of self creation. One way of doing this is, asFrohmann proposed [1991], through discourse analysis. Informationscienceis a hermeneutic science just because there is no definite separationbetweeninformation and misinformation. Information science is the science ofinformationand misinformation. Weare concerned, as Popper suggested [1973], with problems and not withsubjectfields precisely because problems always arise within changing(culturaland historical) horizons or fields (!) of expectations. These termsbelong,by the way, to the same geographical metaphor (pro-blem = tothrowbefore). Thelinear model of human knowledge and action from "facts" to "decisions",suggested by Hayes [1991], is an idealized description of humanunderstanding,which must take decisions in order to establish facts, thus beinginvolvedin a hermeneutic, i.e., not only intellectual, but also pragmaticalcircle. Thequestion 'what is information for?' leads to the question 'what isinformationscience for?' since information science, conceived as ahermeneutic-rhetoricaldiscipline, studies the con-textual pragmatical dimensionswithinwhich knwoledge is shared positively as information and negativelyas misinformation particularly through technical forms ofcommunication.These are not just an instrument but a "way of being" [Winograd andFlores1986]. This conception of information science is important if we wantinformationsystems to become part of the background of various forms ofliving.
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Notes (1)For a detailed exposition see my [1986]. (2)For criticisms on Winograd and Flores see my [1991a] (3)For more details see my [1986, pp. 74-98]

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Foundations of Information Science

Wittgenstein,L. (1984). Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt a.M.
Lastupdate: May 25, 2010

Copyright© 1999 by Rafael Capurro, all rights reserved. This text may beusedand shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. andinternationalcopyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronicform,provided that the author is notified and no fee is charged for access.Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on otherterms,in any medium, requires the consent of theauthor.

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