There are a number of ways in which one can try to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. For instance, one can write books that other people will read and acquire knowledge from. Also, one can give money to scholarship funds so that other people will be able to attend school and acquire knowledge there. Information services, however, typically try to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge in one particular way: namely, they disseminate information. So, within information science, the question for social epistemologists is how to disseminate information so as to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge.
The aim of this course is to investigate the many possible applications of social epistemology to information science. In line with this, the application assignment requires you to investigate one particular application of social epistemology to information science in detail. In particular, I would like you to evaluate how well a specific practice for information services facilitates the acquisition of knowledge. You can simply evaluate an existing practice, you can suggest a possible improvement to an existing practice, or you can propose a completely new practice.
Note: A practice is simply an ongoing policy (or way of doing things) that an information service might decide to adopt. For example, offering interlibrary loan (ILL) to patrons is a possible practice. Allocating 5% of the budget to funding ILL requests is a possible practice. Requiring reference librarians to consult at least two independent sources before giving a patron an answer to a reference question is a possible practice. Putting filtering software on Internet terminals is a possible practice.
What I have in mind here is roughly the sort of thing that Thagard did in his article. He gave an epistemological evaluation of the Internet as a tool for scientific research. In a similar vein, one of my upcoming lectures is going to be an epistemological evaluation of several collection management practices.
You should evaluate this practice from the perspective of a particular theoretical position in social epistemology (e.g., Shera's position, Goldman's position, Harding's position). Whether or not a particular a practice is epistemically beneficial may depend on the specific epistemic objectives that we have. So, for example, you will need to say exactly how the particular theorist that you have chosen defines the term “knowledge.” You should also say why information services should be in the business of facilitating the acquisition of this particular type of knowledge.
Note: Suppose, for example, that you choose Goldman as your theorist and that you choose the practice of offering ILL to patrons. According to Goldman (1999), knowledge simply is true belief. Thus, you would want to determine whether offering ILL promotes true belief.
Thus, for this assignment, you basically have to do three things:
Finally, I would like you to be sure to focus your discussion on the epistemic consequences of adopting this practice. You may also want to discuss non-epistemic consequences (e.g., the ethical or economic consequences) of this practice. Such considerations will be crucial when we are actually deciding whether to adopt this practice. However, you should be very explicit that you are no longer discussing epistemic consequences. There is a division of labor here. It is the job of the economist to determine what the economic consequences of implementing a practice are likely to be. It is the job of the epistemologist to determine what the epistemic consequences of implementing a practice are likely to be.You need to choose a practice for information services and describe it. You need to choose a particular theoretical position in social epistemology and describe it. You need to evaluate this practice in terms of the theoretical position that you have chosen to discuss. For example, what are the epistemic benefits and epistemic costs of this practice? Which specific epistemic objectives does this practice serve? Does this practice serve these objectives better than alternative practices? Is there a conflict between different epistemic objectives here? If so, how should this conflict be resolved? Does this practice promote knowledge on the part of people using the information service? Does this practice promote knowledge on the part of the rest of society? Etcetera.
Note: Non-epistemic considerations can sometimes have an impact on what the epistemic consequences are likely to be. For example, as McDowell (2002) points out, people who are generally trustworthy are more likely to be trusted to speak the truth. In such cases, non-epistemic considerations are legitimately of interest to the epistemologist.
Generally speaking, it will be better for you to choose a practice that is fairly specific. For example, you could look at the epistemic consequences of simply offering ILL at all. However, it will probably be more interesting for you to look at the epistemic consequences of a particular way of offering ILL. Be sure to choose a practice that has not already been explicitly discussed in detail by your theorist. You may want to make use of more than one theoretical position. For example, as noted in the lecture on "Epistemic Objectives", the epistemic objectives suggested by Goldman (e.g., power, speed, and fecundity) can be used in conjunction with many different definitions of knowledge. When choosing a theoretical position, you should keep in mind that not everything in the area of social epistemology explicitly identifies itself as social epistemology. In other words, authors (e.g., sociologists of knowledge) may not always refer to themselves as social epistemologists.
You will need to get my approval on your topic (i.e., the practice and the theoretical position that you will use to evaluate it) ahead of time. Post your application project on a web page. Post the URL of this web page to the "Application Project Questions" forum. This assignment is due by 11:59pm MST on April 23rd. Please send me questions about this assignment via the "Application Project Questions" forum or via my WebCT Mail.
You can post your article analysis on web space provided by your own ISP. Alternatively, you can get free web space when you apply for your UA email account. If you have not posted a web page before, you should probably try posting a very simple web page as practice well before this assignment is due.
This document was last updated on March 5, 2004.