Dousa, T.M.: ¬The simple and the complex in E. C. Richardson's theory of classification : observations on an early KO model of the relationship between ontology and epistemology (2010)
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- Abstract
- In light of ongoing debates about ontological vs. epistemological approaches to knowledge organization (KO), this paper examines E. C. Richardson's treatment of ontology and epistemology in his theory of classification. According to Richardson, there is a natural order of things in the world accessible to human cognition, which may be expressed in two classificatory orders: evolutionary classification, which ranges classes of things from the most simple to the most complex, and logical classification, which ranges classes of things in the inverse order, from the most complex to the most simple. Evolutionary classification reflects ontological order and logical classification reflects epistemological order: both are faces of a single natural order. Such a view requires adherence to a representationalist, or, in Hjorland's (2008) terms, positivist understanding of epistemology, wherein human knowledge faithfully mirrors the structure of the external world. Richardson's harmonization of ontology and epistemology will find little favor among proponents of the currently fashionable pragmatist approach to KO. Nevertheless, it constitutes an early version of what Gnoli (2004) terms a naturalistic epistemology, which, once deepened and clarified, offers the best prospects for an explicit expression of both the ontological and epistemological dimensions of knowledge within a single classification of general scope.
- Pages
- S.15-22
