While I applaud your efforts to refute constructionism and its ilk, I wonder how much of an effect your refutation might have on Lankes’s views. For instance, Lankes expresses one of his most cherished views in this way: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” I’m sure Lankes would never say the following, but let’s suppose he did: “OK, I cry ‘uncle’ on the constructionist aspects of my theory, but I can still retain most of the practical aspects by making this simple change: ‘The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge discovery in their communities.’” By switching from “creation” to “discovery,” perhaps Lankes could say that, though conversation doesn’t create knowledge, it still is the primary way that knowledge discovery is facilitated or effected. Mightn’t Lankes then retain the practical aspects of his theory, i.e. the aspects that affect the activities in which he thinks librarians should engage? As I noted in a prior post, I’m more interested in ideas about how librarians should view their careers and the future of librarianship than in sheer theoretical debates. But it might turn out that the practical stuff is intimately connected with the theoretical stuff. I don’t have a copy of “The atlas of new librarianship,” so I’m depending on your knowledge of this work to answer this question.
Paul H.: Thanks for the thoughtful comment. While I like the added dimension of "knowledge discovery" I don't think Lankes needs to adjust the wording of his mission statement and I whole-heartedly agree with the statement as written. My concern is with what it means to "facilitate knowledge creation". Lankes sees knowledge creation as a constructivist process of conversational agreement. I, on the other hand, adopt a more analytic approach: knowledge is non-accidentally true belief (or, justified true belief with a few modifications to answer Gettier-type problems). So, I would argue that libraries can facilitate knowledge creation by assisting patrons in the justification process. We are uniquely situated in society to assist our patrons in their search for the truth. (I still hold to the "speaking truth to power" or "truth shall set you free" angle). So, rather than say that conversation creates knowledge, I'm more comfortable saying that the information traded in a conversation can provide justification for a belief, provided certain epistemic virtues are adhered to, but there are many other ways of reaching knowledge, too. I'll be writing a post in the near future describing how we can adopt the goals of new librarianship without adopting constructionist theory.
As to the practical relevance of all this, I think the realist/anti-realist debate can have fairly serious consequences. Here's just one example: Lankes explicitly describes how Conversation Theory entails that libraries need to move away from assisting patrons with determining good from bad information, or truth from falsity (pp. 90-92). Instead, we should present multiple perspectives and "facilitate the member to make a good choice. The alternative approach, to predetermine good and bad sources and conversations, is authoritarian" (p. 92). Think of what this doctrine does for collection development: do we now need to purchase based on diversity of opinion rather than legitimacy of opinion? For cataloging: do we catalog the Bible in religion or science or does it depend on our community? For instruction: how are we to teach methods for evaluating sources if there are no objective criteria by which to evaluate?
I do think the practical stuff is intimately connected with the theoretical stuff. However, I also think that ALL librarians (all people, even) intuitively make practical decisions based on an objective sense of knowledge. We can theorize about constructionism, but we act in the world as realists (just throw a ball at a constructionist's head and see if he flinches). So, authors can suggest constructionism as much as they want, but at rock-bottom we're all realists. This is why I get so perplexed when people keep pushing the radical constructionist line.
Thanks for the helpful comments, Lane. I like your idea of librarians as assisting in the belief justification process. But even your formulation might be too much in Lankes’s ballpark. Sometimes library users come to the library without any beliefs to justify, and librarians assist them in finding works to help them become acquainted with various new views and ideas, etc., not to mention the fact that many library users just want entertainment or intellectual/artistic stimulation and librarians help them with this, and surely these legitimate librarian activities need to be accommodated in a theory of librarianship. Getting back to Lankes’s more narrow conception, though, he might be able to defend his theory by sufficiently watering down the concept of “conversation” (which he has to do, anyway, to account for the obvious facts of how people actually come to know things). I think I recall him at some point using the notion of “conversing with oneself,” and if that counts as conversation, just about kind of cognitive activity will fit into “conversation theory.”
Thanks for noting some of the practical consequences of Lankes’s view. To use constructivism to give up on “better information/worse information” strikes me as wacky. The passage you quote from Lankes almost sounds like a reductio ad absurdum of his position. (“I liked your theory at first, Dave, but if that’s what it leads to, forget it!”) What makes Lankes’s view sound attractive on the surface is the fact that, as humans, we “construct” our knowledge through conversation, collaboration, revision, debate, etc. On some phenomenological level, it seems right to say that our society, in bits and pieces, constructs knowledge about the world. (Remember the idea that one mission of libraries is supposed to be keeping “the human record.”) But this homey observation shouldn’t be used to support constructivism and lead us to give up on objective truth and falsehood. The whole point of all this conversing, debating, revising, re-thinking, etc. is our ongoing effort to get closer to the objective truth. (I suppose Lankes doesn’t believe in genuine scientific progress, either.)
Anyway, this is really interesting stuff. Looking forward to your further thoughts on the subject.
"How can there be a single, objective fact-of-the-matter to which libraries are somehow privileged, when the participatory internet seems to accept all claims to knowledge?"
The publishing world, in the fringes of vanity publishing et cetera, can also be considered participatory (without authority). And if a non-authoritative title somehow became a matter of community interest, most present collection development policies would support its acquisition.
In this circumstance, it would be hard to demonstrate any sort of entitlement to objective facts on the part of the library, despite the particular act of collection development being within professional ethics.
It seems to me that such a privilege of truth arbitration is variable among aspects of librarianship, namely collection development, cataloging, and reference. A collection developer might routinely ignore reality to abide by collection 'balance' and community interest. Classification has all kinds of thorny edge cases. And reference, while including knowledge creation as an over-arching goal, cannot ignore the basic function of fulfilling information needs — and if a patron needs false information, is it really our role to be prescriptive?
Can't LIS acknowledge absolute facts as they apply to an epistemological framework while simultaneously allowing us to ethically misinform our patrons?
Paul H.: You are absolutely right that discovery is integral to what we do. I meant to say that, but it came out wrong. We provide access to new ideas as well as the means to determine the veracity of all ideas, new or old. As to the issue of entertainment, that's been nagging at me. Perhaps a better mission for librarians would be to facilitate knowledge creation AND discovery AND to provide quality entertainment? I don't know what to say about it (I get stuck in academic library thinking) but you are absolutely right that it needs to be addressed.
I also agree that the point of this conversing, debating, inquiring, etc. is to get closer to the truth, rather than merely come to a consensus. I'll try to incorporate most of what you've said in my next post. Thanks!
"...facilitate knowledge creation AND discovery AND to provide quality entertainment." Hah! Good one, Lane. I see your point about balking a bit at the entertainment part. Well, analysis is a tough business. You reminded me of an occasion in a philosophy class in which a professor was giving an example of an unacceptable analysis of a concept: Someone once defined "being alive" as being locomotive, photosynthetic, or...a mushroom. It's almost enough to make one retreat back to the more elastic concept of "information." Anyway, thanks for the comments.
Brad: You're right that our ethical obligations as librarians prohibit us from being overly prescriptive. If a patron wants a book on homeopathy, I'm going to get it for her. If a patron wants research into telepathy, I'll help him out. Libraries owe it to society to collect information, misinformation, disinformation, contradictions, and everything between. I, for one, have purchased materials supporting intelligent design and materials criticizing intelligent design. Taken as a whole, the library is filled to the rafters with contradictions.
But, that doesn't mean we have to be constructivists. As realists we can acknowledge that there is an objective fact of the matter but that as librarians we aren't in charge of making the final decision. In fact, the best way to determine the truth is to examine all the evidence and it's epistemically irresponsible to reject a theory or belief without giving it due consideration. So we owe it to our patrons to provide access to a range of competing beliefs, even when those beliefs contradict.
As to how libraries should respond to community requests for known bullshit (e.g., all the requests for The Secret), there is nothing wrong with being a realist AND also giving the community what they want. We have a moral obligation not to presume how or why our patrons will be using the information they request. But, if we're going to provide known bullshit because it's popular, let's not pretend that we're creating new knowledge. In opposition to social constructionism, just because people think something is true, doesn't make it true.
As to reference, I'll just say that if someone has an real information-need, they don't want false information, they want the truth. If they want me to provide false information, I will, but I won't deign to call that knowledge creation.
I think you're overstating the degree to which librarians and academics have embraced a rigid state of post-modernist existence, particularly in defining themselves and approaching the world as constructivists or constructionists as you describe above. And I think you underestimate the degree to which libraries - traditionally conservative and beholden to the status quo - have long been contested sites of knowledge. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a post-modernist or relativst, but I sure do see the value in the kind of skepticism toward the kinds of universal truths promoted by the positivist narratives driving this country's history and its powerful institutions. And I think that's really the appeal and utility of postmodernism: its ability to get people questioning the status quo and make institutions like libraries more responsive to a broader range of human experience - which, let's face it, is subjective, even if knowledge isn't as you claim. The activist impulse of libraries and librarians springs forth from the widening intellectual developments of the past 40-50 years and it's foolish to believe that this has somehow impeded librarianship or stunted the collective knowledge of the profession during this time. That said, I realize that there is the potential for the post-modern viewpoint to evolve into a sort of intellectual and moral nihilism, where nothing is right or wrong; but I don't think this has infiltrated librarianship anywhere close to where your article suggests.
1. I'm only really looking at the scholarly literature on library science, wherein postmodern thought is, if not a dominant thread, a familiar one. Of course, in actual practice, constructivism is rarely, if ever, seen.
2. As to the "positivist narratives" driving this country's institutions, we can be skeptics without abandoning objectivity.
3. Human experience is a wonderful mix of the subjective and the objective. I don't want to abandon either and I really don't want to see one collapse into the other.
4. If anything, the library activism of the past 40-50 years has been driven by objective, rational inquiry, of which a healthy skepticism of received opinion is a vital part.
5. Finally, I don't mean to imply that postmodernism has infiltrated libraries to any great degree. I only want to point out that some librarians are pushing for postmodernism in libraries, and that we shouldn't take them on their word.
The first half of this post had me ready to scream. I got a masters and started a PhD program in anthropology before switching to LIS -- the first half of this post reminded me of many of my most frustrating experiences there! I spent a few years arguing against throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- just because "science" has been misused to support the existing hegemony, that doesn't justify deserting it altogether for a radically postmodern perspective.
For example, you mention the role of post-colonialism and reconsideration of the imposition of "scientific" superiority. But even more recently, development agencies have gone out with the assumption that spreading Western scientific principles would help everyone. In the 1970s, the Green Revolution brought early GMO rice to Indonesia, where locals were encouraged to drop their traditional seeds & farming methods in favor of scientific methods -- super-rice and petrochemical fertilizers. That led to greatly increased yields for a couple of years, then massive problems with pests and water shortages. Arguing for the constructivist validity of the traditional farming methods would not have influenced this situation. The scientific research done by Stephen Lansing did help matters -- he studied the traditional practices and used computer simulation models to show how the traditional methods worked to control pests, manage the water supply, and ensure optimal harvests. In this case, the powers that be (the Indonesian government) came to respect the traditional methods -- not because they should be given equal consideration as an alternative constructed reality, but because a thoughtful scientific study showed them to be equally valid and more locally appropriate.
In relation to library science and collection development, we absolutely need to represent a variety of perspectives on the matter. I read many of those early "scientific" studies about the intellectual and moral inferiority of "primitives" to gain a better understanding of the history of anthropology. It is not our role to play the authoritarian knowledge-master and only offer those works that represent currently accepted knowledge claims. But teaching people how to evaluate those claims -- including encouraging them to read competing views to compare the arguments -- is part of our job.
One of my old professors liked to suggest gathering some radical postmodernists (those extreme constructivists that deny an objective external reality) on the roof of the Empire State Building and questioning the objective reality of gravity... (Not suggesting pushing, just listening to them backpedal on their theoretical pronouncements to justify their unwillingness to fly!)
"2. As to the "positivist narratives" driving this country's institutions, we can be skeptics without abandoning objectivity."
Positivism is only one philosophy of science. Abandoning science altogether is not an appropriate response. Yes, we all walk into scientific inquiry with cultural baggage and biases -- in that sense, we could argue that it is socially constructed. My social knowledge and background influences the topics I will be interested in studying. But at the heart of the scientific method is an assumption of an objective external reality.
When we get to studying human behavior, that gets trickier -- there are too many confounding variables that can't be controlled, which makes it easy to slip into extreme relativity. That is a fundamental difference between the hard sciences and social sciences. In agriculture, plant X can be reliably expected to perform a certain way in soil conditions Y and rainfall levels Z and so on. If it fails in the real world, one can assume that some factor was not optimal -- wrong soil conditions, irrigation failures, whatever. In psychology, it's not always so easy to determine why two people with similar demographic traits respond differently, even in controlled lab experiments -- too many confounding variables in their social experiences. So if we can never determine hard-and-fast scientific laws about human behavior, do we stop trying to learn?
The early post-modern critique was hugely important. It pointed out a lot of failings in the hegemonic scientific discourse accepted up till that point. But we can use it to improve our scientific methods! It frustrates me to no end when people take any theory to an extreme -- positivists can be as bad as extreme postmodernists, and in my experience they get to those extremes out of frustration in arguing against the other. We need a middle ground that breeds a healthy skepticism (I like to think of that as information literacy, the ability to evaluate an information resource) without denying either an objective external reality or the influence of social conditions on learned human behavior.
Angela: Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I agree that the misuse and abuse of science is a terrible justification for postmodernism. I'm glad you pointed out the Green Revolution; I was thinking of including Norman Borlaug in my follow-up post...one billion lives saved through science is pretty hard to beat.
As to library science and collection development, you are absolutely right. I regret not making it explicit that I'm all in favor of collecting as many diverse perspectives as possible. Your example of studying outdated anthropology research is instructive: we need to understand all competing viewpoints if we are to reach the truth, but that doesn't mean that all competing viewpoints are equally valid. Like you say, teaching people how to evaluate information is our job, and that requires that we offer a range of information sources. Perspective is of the utmost importance if we want to be rational.
And the backpedaling of the rooftop pomos? It just goes to show that when it comes down to practical decision-making, no one is really a postmodernist.
The epistemologists I have the most respect for (Richard Rorty and Charles Sanders Pierce) offer a useful counter point. I think your critique against strong relativism (we can't ever know anything about anything) goes too far against rationally justified humility (we shouldn't claim more justification for our truth-claims than our evidence provides).
Knowledge construction simply avoids unneeded dogmatism in our search to justify our claims to knowledge.
In the meantime, what is so wrong with saying that the best knowledge we have today is nothing more than the best knowledge we have today? Our claims to facts and truth are justified only by the reasons we have for holding them (external verification, good methodology, science!) and not by a mystical appeal to some "reality" concept.
My problem with the insistence that our best ideas work better than flawed ideas because they are more "real" is that it is pointlessly metaphysical. It seems to be an appeal to scholasticism, where the best ideas were justified, not by the evidence we have for holding them, but because "God says so". Well, today I think we can safely say, whether or not God exists, our scientific method is the most reliable method we've yet found for creating knowledge about the world. Why not continue in that vein? Whether or not they conform to an external reality, conclusions that are verified by good science are more worthy of belief than others? It doesn't matter if science is more "real" than other methods: it works better.
This is what it boils down to: science and intellectual rigor can't really tell us what is "real" or more accurately, since humans can't experience all of reality directly, we couldn't tell a more "real" answer from a less "real" answer. Knowledge construction embraces this humility. Let's not try to do more than we can do. Let's build the best knowledge we can, test it, and keep rejecting claims that don't work and build better understanding as we go.
Claims that ideas are more "real" than others aren't any more useful that Scholasticism's claims that some ideas are more godly than others. At the end of the day, we're still going to test them rationally according to the best tools and methods at our disposal. Our best ideas are nothing more than our best ideas, seeking to ground them in "god" or "reality" just gets in the way of more effective methods of justifying them.
Nicholas: If you like Peirce and Rorty, I can only assume you are somewhere between pragmatism and neo-pragmatism, so here is an appropriate response for the pragmatist: realism works.
Specifically, realism provides the best explanation and the greatest evidential support for the instrumental reliability of science. The consistency of our causal explanations would be miraculous if the objects of scientific inquiry did not really exist. Likewise, we can apply multiple experiments across many theoretical domains to corroborate scientific claims, and this is only possible if the objects of experiment really exist. In a simple since, it's all about inference to the best explanation, and realism is the best explanation for why science works.
I think I follow the line presented in this article: Boyd, R. (1983). On the current status of the issue of scientific realism. Erkenntnis, 19, pp. 45-90.
Thank you for your response. I'm out of practice, but the response to "realism works" is "That something works should be enough, no need to build a metaphysics on top of it."
Objective reality can be a useful assumption and denying it rarely leads to useful conversation. So I want to be clear that what I'm doing is looking for a defense for epistemelogical humility, for defending "the best we know" simply as "the best we know" without resorting to external metaphysical justifications.
I have some work to do, but I'm convinced that a refutation of the suggestion that Realism is a necessary foundation for library work may be found in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre (primarly Whose Justice, Which Rationality and Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry) and in Richard J. Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermaneutics, and Praxis.
I also completely agree with: "teaching people how to evaluate information is our job, and that requires that we offer a range of information sources. Perspective is of the utmost importance if we want to be rational."
What I'm not seeing is how Realism respects perspective.
Comment 1/2: Hi all, I've been a bit hesitant to jump in, for I fear it may take a very thoughtful conversation and turn it into something about me. However, I also feel there are a few things I need to respond to. I am uncomfortable being positioned as a radical who feels we can jump off the Empire State Building and survive (I'm fine with the radical part).
I posted these comments over on friend feed, but feel it is useful to repeat it for folks who may not see that (and amplify a few):
If you would like to engage in a discussion of objective reality, we can do that. I should be clear...that's not what the Atlas is, It is a theoretical framework, not a philosophical one. It aims at how people behave and how libraries can fit into that, not how the world is. I'm not going to deny being a constructivist, but I would not go so far as to say I am a complete relativist who thinks we make the universe through conversation (as was implied in this post).
I'm a pragmatist...I understand this to be a very unsatisfying answer, but we can debate about whether a table is a table all we want. What I am more interested in is what people associate with tables, how they relate them to other things (objects, ideas, emotions, people), and use those relationships to make decisions. This is directly relevant to social constructs...like libraries (not a natural phenomenon). The role of the library, even the tools of the library, like universal classifications, are socially constructed agreements. The fact that the library exists may be testable and objectively verified, but what it does? Pure social compact stuff. Are we going to say that moving from chained shelving, to august reading rooms, to book warehouses, to information commons is an evolution towards some final truth? Or is it a reflection of the communities we seek to serve?
Take that table again. When I ask what is the definition of a table, the only response is a definition that depends on other social constructs like language, and a near infinite number of empirical variables (where you grew up, what experience you have with tables, cultural expectations, vocation, etc.). Once those variables exceed a handful, traditional methods of validation break down (figure out an ANOVA for infinite dependent and independent variables).
The nature of reality is not unimportant, and I love this discussion, but it fails to scale in social constructs. Even the philosophies and theories we are discussing are founded on ongoing conversation and argument. Science itself is founded on the principles of error. That is that all understandings are our best explanation of the best data we can muster. It is always assumed that both better data and better explanations are possible. Which area we investigate is a decision. Each explanation colored by our current understanding. If libraries are founded on a more definite understanding of the world where right and wrong are absolute, than we had better get them out of the academy.
Comment 2/2: I also think it is a bit of a leap to claim that in constructivism truth is defined by some sort of majority vote. Throughout the Atlas I talk about how the library has a stake and a place in conversations, not simply to lie down and "give them what they want." Take your example of the student seeking to define homosexuality as abnormal. It is a bit more complex than how it is presented. For example, the DSM-II itself was a product of a scientific process. Furthermore to not be aware of the fundamentalist literature will ill-prepare a library member to operate in the world. Librarians present multiple perspectives. That doesn't mean that we have to agree with all the perspectives...that's the whole point of activism. In the prevailing concept of librarians being unbiased it quickly turns into all arguments are equally valid. What's interesting is that I think we'd both agree that this is wrong. It's just you are willing to say because some of those folks are right, and some are wrong universally, and I would say that they are right or wrong given a complex interplay of personal and social factors.
In the civil rights example, there are plenty of "scientific studies" that could be used to justify inequality and mistreatment of minorities. Those views have changed and new science has been done. You can say (and I can live with) that this was better science and better data, but the reason we did the additional studies was a social process. Far from chastising librarians for their involvement, I would praise their involvement because it stepped out of a prevailing "truth" to do what a community saw as right.
Finally in the comments we talked about whether we are discovering knowledge or creating it. Once again for a behavioral standpoint - that is in studying what people do and how they act - I have a hard time seeing the difference. If someone really believes they can fly, they'll jump off the building. As a librarian, I sure hope we try and stop them.
I'll end with this. Thank you for starting this discussion. It is one that is too often missing in the library literature and conference scape that focuses on functions rather than an underlying worldview. It is a deeper understanding of what librarianship is that will propel us forward, and a healthy informed debate that will lead to this understanding.
Hi David, For some reason you comments came through in triplicate; I deleted a comment because it was a duplicate, not because I wanted to censor anything you wrote.
One of the most difficult things in discussing constructivism is the willingness of the participants to equivocate between metaphysical (ontological) relativism and epistemic relativism, and I've made it explicit that I'm keeping these distinct. As I wrote in the previous post, you are most certainly NOT a metaphysical relativist or fact constructivist. But, you are advocating a form of knowledge constructionism.
As you describe Conversation Theory, it is an epistemic relativism. In your book you explicitly define knowledge as a set of agreements (p. 32) and you list things from facts and logic to personal narratives and "more crude persuasive techniques" as fair game for creating agreements (p.40). Agreements are "flexible" (p. 40). Other examples can be found in my previous post. In the absence of any discussion to the effect that some justificatory methods are better than others, the implication is that all methods of justification are equally valid so long as they result in agreement. Again, this is epistemic relativism, so you may want to edit your knowledge creation thread if you aren't advocating epistemic relativism.
That being said, this particular post was not directed specifically towards your book. As to the previous post which was a review of your book, I still stand by my assessment: First, as I just wrote, Conversation Theory is an epistemic relativism, though not an ontological relativism. Second, the treatment of knowledge is philosophically sloppy. I realize it is a book of theory, not philosophy, but theorizing about a core philosophical concept such as knowledge requires a bit more explication and a bit more attention to consistency. Finally, the theoretical aspects of New Librarianship have been previously discussed in the works I cited (Nitecki, Budd, Shera, etc.) and in many more. It would behoove you to include some discussion as to how and why your theory is either similar to or a break from extant theories about the foundations of librarianship. Otherwise, you seem to be pushing a false dilemma.
Dave: It’s a bit hard to tell how far you’re taking the idea of “social constructs.” Even a thoroughgoing realist can admit that language is a social construct. A realist might say that we construct a language to enable us to talk about objective reality; the fact that the language is socially constructed doesn’t affect objective reality. For example, French people have a different set of agreements for their language than English speakers—we can all admit that—but the French and English speakers are still talking about the same reality, we can say they agree with each other or disagree, etc. Perhaps you are just acknowledging that some things are more controversial than others. If a patron were to ask, “Is capitalism the best economic theory?”, I’d have to say not only that I don’t know, but it’s a matter of ongoing controversy, and I could point out some material to help the patron become acquainted with the matter and develop an informed opinion. But if the patron asks, “What is the capital of Vermont?” or “What is the distance from the earth to the moon,” I don’t think there’s much point in telling the patron that language is a social construct and science is an ongoing conversation, etc., and I don’t think it’s “authoritarian” to provide the patron with a definitive answer. Everyone must acknowledge that there are different degrees of controversy to different statements, and we can carry on from there. It seems to me that if you are just making uncontroversial statements about the social nature of language, I don’t see that you need to argue here with the realist (or non-constructivist). If you are saying that there is a social aspect to knowledge, again you might be saying something humdrum or something controversial. For example, if you say that a bunch of scientists got together to develop a system that determined that the distance between the earth and the moon is so-and-so, we can all agree with that. But I don’t see how that could be used to guide the activities of librarians. If you are saying that librarians should inform the patron that it’s controversial what the distance is between the earth and the moon, I’m not sure that is useful. You could get into a serious skeptical discussion (how do we know that there isn’t an evil demon toying with our efforts to measure things), but I hope that’s not what you’re suggesting. So maybe you could shed some light on just how what you’re proposing is different from what a non-constructivist approach to librarianship would be. (Sorry to say, I don’t have a copy of your book yet, and you may have already answered all of this in your book. But if you could give me some clues here, that might keep me satisfied until I get the full story from your book.) Incidentally, thanks very much, Dave, for getting involved in this discussion.
I'm going to stick with Lane's suggestion and separate the ontological and the epistemological (though I admit to probably blurring this line). I'm not arguing about the nature of reality, rather that librarians need to be aware that how people construct knowledge matters...that is relational and individual. So I have no problem with a librarian simply giving and answer to how far the moon is from the earth...however, that distance varies, do you include that information? The variance of that distance is derived through a series of methods and have some different explanations - gravity is a no brainer, but what is gravity is still a mystery. So how far you go in giving an "answer" is going to be dependent on how complex a member's understanding is (or needs to be).
Where constructionism comes into play is in the much more complex world of what that answer means to the member. Is that a number they care about because of an interest in astronomy? How about measurement? How about the history of science? How about philosophy where the member is interested in how we can know that measurement at all. That context of the answer is very important, and complex. It is also, I would argue, developed through an ongoing conversation within the member, between the member and a librarian, and with their communities (and society at large).
If librarians feel there is a set answer with a universal context (I realize too broad a statement) then we are missing the boat. Ultimately we find that the definition of an "answer" is what is constructed. We see this time and again in reference evaluation, for example. Librarians feel they give out great answers, and members see the response from a librarian far from complete.
Bottom line is that while we can argue about the nature of reality, facts are only a part (and I would argue with questions of any significance a decreasing part) of what our members are dealing with.
In terms of warrant and truth or knowledge versus belief brought up in the comments and Lane's earlier post, While I can see the difference being argued, as a behavioral scientist, I don't see the distinction in action. People act on knowledge and belief in this vocabulary. If we want to facilitate knowledge development we need to have a much more complex understanding of knowledge than an accumulation of facts. It is the relation of facts to each other and the relation of beliefs to those facts that matter. If that is philosophically sloppy, I'll work on that.
If librarians want to play a role in improving society, they must engage in the world of beliefs as well as knowledge (once again a distinction I do not make). Librarians participation in Civil Rights, Patriot Act, privacy, etc, is a social discourse and based more on belief than some objective reality.
David: Thanks for the latest comment. It seems your position is that, rather than focus on the evaluation of beliefs (as fact, opinion, knowledge, etc.), we should be concerned with how these beliefs influence actions. Sounds like good old pragmatism and I'm glad you've made the clarification.
Just a couple of things I'm still not understanding: (1) You write, "we need to have a much more complex understanding of knowledge than an accumulation of facts." Reducing knowledge to a mere accumulation of facts is terribly naive, and I'm with you in distancing myself from such a reductionist position. However, as an analytic philosopher, my concern here is with evaluating methods of justification: which track the truth, which are most reliable, etc.. As my advisor used to say, "your beliefs are only as good as the reasons you have to back them up". How do you propose we evaluate the reasons people have for believing that such-and-such is the case, if we should at all? Could some reasons for belief be better/stronger than others? Could some methods of inquiry be better/stronger/more reliable than others?
(2) You discuss the importance of the context of a member's information need, or, what "that answer means to the member." Could you explain how and why a realist approach fails to address this context and perspective? You write that "it is the relation of facts to each other and the relation of beliefs to those facts that matter" but this is entirely consistent with an objective account of rationality.
I don't know if my follow-up post clarifies my position any, but it may help.
(Paul H. here, in response to Dave's comment.) It appears that we’re making a retreat from hardcore metaphysics and epistemology and are just talking about the nature of librarianship, which is probably a good thing. (I’m still dubious that metaphysical and epistemological questions have a real impact on librarianship.) Dave makes a valid point that sometimes answers to library members’ questions need to be put into context. I don’t know how far this point can be pushed, but it raises some interesting questions about the nature of librarianship. If a high school student asks a reference librarian at a public library to help him find the distance between the earth and the moon, of course the librarian could point out that this distance varies, but the student might be satisfied with a simple average or a rough estimate. This really might be all that a student needs, and it would be a bad idea (I think) for a librarian to insist that the student and the librarian need some time to explore how this measurement is made, the history of such measurements, what determines the variability of the distance, etc. It seems to me just common sense (or at least common knowledge for librarians) that sometimes library members need just simple answers to their questions and sometimes they need something more complex, and sometimes they need a lot of context for their answers and would appreciate such a discussion. It’s also common sense that some questions are more controversial than others (from “Who are the current senators of Idaho?” to “Can fetuses feel pain prior to 24 weeks of pregnancy?”). I see no problem with librarians trying to determine what the library user really needs and using that to guide their responses and how far to probe the question. (In the old days I think they called this “the reference interview.”) But I believe that this is really dependent on how far the user wants to go, not on some mission of the librarian to enlighten society. On the other hand, I could believe that there might be an argument for librarians to push harder to enlighten patrons rather than just give them what they want (in a broad sense), but I would like to see this argument. I think that would be quite interesting. For instance, I’m an academic librarian, and I believe that academic librarians have an obligation to try to teach students something about using the library whenever they ask a question at the reference desk. But I also think that this is dependent on the students’ desires and needs; if a student really just wants a quick answer about a source of information and is under a severe deadline, I’m not going to insist on teaching them something. So far, my sense is that Dave is recommending that librarians be sensitive to the relative complexity of questions and to the needs of library users, and I think this is very sensible. But is this really something that goes beyond what librarians have always been taught? If Dave is pushing for something beyond this, I would love to hear that argument.
Paul, I don't think I'm advocating for librarianship to come to a radical new mission, in fact I think I'm promoting a return to a very old mission. I think where we may disagree (maybe not) is where knowledge resides. I come from the perspective that it is internal to an individual, and cannot be truly externalized. Books, webpages, DVD's, etc. are representations of knowledge, can be used in forming, validating, and (yup, I'm not giving up) constructing knowledge, but it is not a simple transfer process. Given that, the focus of librarians (and here I think we do agree) is on the knowledge process - which I see in conversation theory.
If we look at it this way, then knowledge acquisition is a uniquely human process and that is where the focus of librarians should be. In essence librarians and libraries are about learning, not warehousing knowledge containers (because, I would argue that would be warehousing people). The collection and building are just tools in this mission. These tools will change.
The implication also affects how we prepare librarians. They need to understand communications, and learning first and foremost, not cataloging, and processes.
David: Thanks for the mention on the online knowledge supplement. I do, however, have a question, and I don't want to gum-up your site.
You write that I "present an alternative approach to the constructed approach to knowledge presented in the Atlas (the Atlas is all about conversation, not about agreement)." Yet, the Atlas makes it explicit that knowledge is constructed out of agreements. You write in the book that "agreements, and their relationships to one another, form the basis of what we know" (p. 40), you define knowledge as a set of agreements (p. 32), and you write that conversation isn't enough, "to learn something, we must seek agreements." (p. 222).
(Paul H. here again.) I appreciate your taking the time to help me understand your views, Dave. I hope you don’t feel ganged up on by me and Lane. I think both he and I are delighted by someone (i.e. Dave Lankes) who brings fresh theoretical ideas to thinking about librarianship. At this point in the discussion, Lane’s comments are in the spotlight.
I’m beginning to understand your approach to knowledge. As you say, the focus of knowledge is not books, it is people. Knowledge is not truly expressed in books but in the behavior of persons, particularly in their linguistic behavior. (But we still need to have some way to refer to books and other “knowledge representations” (your terminology).) At this point, I’m becoming concerned that any disagreements we have are purely semantic, such that you are just giving names to aspects of librarianship that are different from those that are traditionally used. I don’t think you believe that you could take all the behavior that pertains to librarians and libraries—reference transactions, materials acquisitions, cataloging, library school instruction, etc.—and just seamlessly fit your theoretical framework over all these activities and leave them unaffected. I think you intend your theory to be prescriptive, i.e. having consequences that recommend changes in the activities that currently involve librarianship. So (after you’ve attended to Lane’s comments) can you provide some examples of how your theory entails that current library-related activities are misguided and how these activities should be changed (and not just re-named or re-conceived)? This might include “reference transactions” between librarians and library users, acquisitions activities, and librarian education.
Lane: I will clarify my language. What I meant to say that my purpose with the Atlas is to start conversations about librarianship not to force folks to agree with me.
Paul: the short answer to examples is that why I wrote a book :-) There two types of examples: understanding why newer library practices like the commons model makes sense, and then suggested newer practice. For example retiring catalogs that act as inventory systems with learning managent systems. Also expanding the concept of reference from one on one to more social including lots of different folks.
Lane in the comments on his post reviewing the book said that I didn't really propose anything new if folks have been keeping up with current trends. While I wouldn't go that far I am the first to say not everything in the Atlas is brand new. Instead I was working towards a framework that explains why some of them make sense, while others do not. Take social networking. From the premise of conversations (and language) they make sense as a librarian service. However not simply throwing up a catalog search interface in Facebook. Likewise tagging makes little sense because of a focus on an item and not relationships.
(Paul H., again.) Thanks, Dave. I'll just have to get my hands on a copy of your book to get to the next level of understanding your views. And, sure, it's easy to be cavalier about "items", until one is talking about one's own BOOK! Ha! Just kidding, Dave. I'll be in touch again if I feel like I can contribute to the discussion.
While I applaud your efforts to refute constructionism and its ilk, I wonder how much of an effect your refutation might have on Lankes’s views. For instance, Lankes expresses one of his most cherished views in this way: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” I’m sure Lankes would never say the following, but let’s suppose he did: “OK, I cry ‘uncle’ on the constructionist aspects of my theory, but I can still retain most of the practical aspects by making this simple change: ‘The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge discovery in their communities.’” By switching from “creation” to “discovery,” perhaps Lankes could say that, though conversation doesn’t create knowledge, it still is the primary way that knowledge discovery is facilitated or effected. Mightn’t Lankes then retain the practical aspects of his theory, i.e. the aspects that affect the activities in which he thinks librarians should engage? As I noted in a prior post, I’m more interested in ideas about how librarians should view their careers and the future of librarianship than in sheer theoretical debates. But it might turn out that the practical stuff is intimately connected with the theoretical stuff. I don’t have a copy of “The atlas of new librarianship,” so I’m depending on your knowledge of this work to answer this question.
ReplyDeletePaul H.: Thanks for the thoughtful comment. While I like the added dimension of "knowledge discovery" I don't think Lankes needs to adjust the wording of his mission statement and I whole-heartedly agree with the statement as written. My concern is with what it means to "facilitate knowledge creation". Lankes sees knowledge creation as a constructivist process of conversational agreement. I, on the other hand, adopt a more analytic approach: knowledge is non-accidentally true belief (or, justified true belief with a few modifications to answer Gettier-type problems). So, I would argue that libraries can facilitate knowledge creation by assisting patrons in the justification process. We are uniquely situated in society to assist our patrons in their search for the truth. (I still hold to the "speaking truth to power" or "truth shall set you free" angle). So, rather than say that conversation creates knowledge, I'm more comfortable saying that the information traded in a conversation can provide justification for a belief, provided certain epistemic virtues are adhered to, but there are many other ways of reaching knowledge, too. I'll be writing a post in the near future describing how we can adopt the goals of new librarianship without adopting constructionist theory.
ReplyDeleteAs to the practical relevance of all this, I think the realist/anti-realist debate can have fairly serious consequences. Here's just one example: Lankes explicitly describes how Conversation Theory entails that libraries need to move away from assisting patrons with determining good from bad information, or truth from falsity (pp. 90-92). Instead, we should present multiple perspectives and "facilitate the member to make a good choice. The alternative approach, to predetermine good and bad sources and conversations, is authoritarian" (p. 92). Think of what this doctrine does for collection development: do we now need to purchase based on diversity of opinion rather than legitimacy of opinion? For cataloging: do we catalog the Bible in religion or science or does it depend on our community? For instruction: how are we to teach methods for evaluating sources if there are no objective criteria by which to evaluate?
I do think the practical stuff is intimately connected with the theoretical stuff. However, I also think that ALL librarians (all people, even) intuitively make practical decisions based on an objective sense of knowledge. We can theorize about constructionism, but we act in the world as realists (just throw a ball at a constructionist's head and see if he flinches). So, authors can suggest constructionism as much as they want, but at rock-bottom we're all realists. This is why I get so perplexed when people keep pushing the radical constructionist line.
Thanks for the helpful comments, Lane. I like your idea of librarians as assisting in the belief justification process. But even your formulation might be too much in Lankes’s ballpark. Sometimes library users come to the library without any beliefs to justify, and librarians assist them in finding works to help them become acquainted with various new views and ideas, etc., not to mention the fact that many library users just want entertainment or intellectual/artistic stimulation and librarians help them with this, and surely these legitimate librarian activities need to be accommodated in a theory of librarianship. Getting back to Lankes’s more narrow conception, though, he might be able to defend his theory by sufficiently watering down the concept of “conversation” (which he has to do, anyway, to account for the obvious facts of how people actually come to know things). I think I recall him at some point using the notion of “conversing with oneself,” and if that counts as conversation, just about kind of cognitive activity will fit into “conversation theory.”
ReplyDeleteThanks for noting some of the practical consequences of Lankes’s view. To use constructivism to give up on “better information/worse information” strikes me as wacky. The passage you quote from Lankes almost sounds like a reductio ad absurdum of his position. (“I liked your theory at first, Dave, but if that’s what it leads to, forget it!”) What makes Lankes’s view sound attractive on the surface is the fact that, as humans, we “construct” our knowledge through conversation, collaboration, revision, debate, etc. On some phenomenological level, it seems right to say that our society, in bits and pieces, constructs knowledge about the world. (Remember the idea that one mission of libraries is supposed to be keeping “the human record.”) But this homey observation shouldn’t be used to support constructivism and lead us to give up on objective truth and falsehood. The whole point of all this conversing, debating, revising, re-thinking, etc. is our ongoing effort to get closer to the objective truth. (I suppose Lankes doesn’t believe in genuine scientific progress, either.)
Anyway, this is really interesting stuff. Looking forward to your further thoughts on the subject.
"How can there be a single, objective fact-of-the-matter to which libraries are somehow privileged, when the participatory internet seems to accept all claims to knowledge?"
ReplyDeleteThe publishing world, in the fringes of vanity publishing et cetera, can also be considered participatory (without authority). And if a non-authoritative title somehow became a matter of community interest, most present collection development policies would support its acquisition.
In this circumstance, it would be hard to demonstrate any sort of entitlement to objective facts on the part of the library, despite the particular act of collection development being within professional ethics.
It seems to me that such a privilege of truth arbitration is variable among aspects of librarianship, namely collection development, cataloging, and reference. A collection developer might routinely ignore reality to abide by collection 'balance' and community interest. Classification has all kinds of thorny edge cases. And reference, while including knowledge creation as an over-arching goal, cannot ignore the basic function of fulfilling information needs — and if a patron needs false information, is it really our role to be prescriptive?
Can't LIS acknowledge absolute facts as they apply to an epistemological framework while simultaneously allowing us to ethically misinform our patrons?
Paul H.: You are absolutely right that discovery is integral to what we do. I meant to say that, but it came out wrong. We provide access to new ideas as well as the means to determine the veracity of all ideas, new or old. As to the issue of entertainment, that's been nagging at me. Perhaps a better mission for librarians would be to facilitate knowledge creation AND discovery AND to provide quality entertainment? I don't know what to say about it (I get stuck in academic library thinking) but you are absolutely right that it needs to be addressed.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the point of this conversing, debating, inquiring, etc. is to get closer to the truth, rather than merely come to a consensus. I'll try to incorporate most of what you've said in my next post. Thanks!
"...facilitate knowledge creation AND discovery AND to provide quality entertainment." Hah! Good one, Lane. I see your point about balking a bit at the entertainment part. Well, analysis is a tough business. You reminded me of an occasion in a philosophy class in which a professor was giving an example of an unacceptable analysis of a concept: Someone once defined "being alive" as being locomotive, photosynthetic, or...a mushroom. It's almost enough to make one retreat back to the more elastic concept of "information." Anyway, thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteBrad: You're right that our ethical obligations as librarians prohibit us from being overly prescriptive. If a patron wants a book on homeopathy, I'm going to get it for her. If a patron wants research into telepathy, I'll help him out. Libraries owe it to society to collect information, misinformation, disinformation, contradictions, and everything between. I, for one, have purchased materials supporting intelligent design and materials criticizing intelligent design. Taken as a whole, the library is filled to the rafters with contradictions.
ReplyDeleteBut, that doesn't mean we have to be constructivists. As realists we can acknowledge that there is an objective fact of the matter but that as librarians we aren't in charge of making the final decision. In fact, the best way to determine the truth is to examine all the evidence and it's epistemically irresponsible to reject a theory or belief without giving it due consideration. So we owe it to our patrons to provide access to a range of competing beliefs, even when those beliefs contradict.
As to how libraries should respond to community requests for known bullshit (e.g., all the requests for The Secret), there is nothing wrong with being a realist AND also giving the community what they want. We have a moral obligation not to presume how or why our patrons will be using the information they request. But, if we're going to provide known bullshit because it's popular, let's not pretend that we're creating new knowledge. In opposition to social constructionism, just because people think something is true, doesn't make it true.
As to reference, I'll just say that if someone has an real information-need, they don't want false information, they want the truth. If they want me to provide false information, I will, but I won't deign to call that knowledge creation.
I think you're overstating the degree to which librarians and academics have embraced a rigid state of post-modernist existence, particularly in defining themselves and approaching the world as constructivists or constructionists as you describe above. And I think you underestimate the degree to which libraries - traditionally conservative and beholden to the status quo - have long been contested sites of knowledge. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a post-modernist or relativst, but I sure do see the value in the kind of skepticism toward the kinds of universal truths promoted by the positivist narratives driving this country's history and its powerful institutions. And I think that's really the appeal and utility of postmodernism: its ability to get people questioning the status quo and make institutions like libraries more responsive to a broader range of human experience - which, let's face it, is subjective, even if knowledge isn't as you claim. The activist impulse of libraries and librarians springs forth from the widening intellectual developments of the past 40-50 years and it's foolish to believe that this has somehow impeded librarianship or stunted the collective knowledge of the profession during this time. That said, I realize that there is the potential for the post-modern viewpoint to evolve into a sort of intellectual and moral nihilism, where nothing is right or wrong; but I don't think this has infiltrated librarianship anywhere close to where your article suggests.
ReplyDeleteBrad Wiles:
ReplyDelete1. I'm only really looking at the scholarly literature on library science, wherein postmodern thought is, if not a dominant thread, a familiar one. Of course, in actual practice, constructivism is rarely, if ever, seen.
2. As to the "positivist narratives" driving this country's institutions, we can be skeptics without abandoning objectivity.
3. Human experience is a wonderful mix of the subjective and the objective. I don't want to abandon either and I really don't want to see one collapse into the other.
4. If anything, the library activism of the past 40-50 years has been driven by objective, rational inquiry, of which a healthy skepticism of received opinion is a vital part.
5. Finally, I don't mean to imply that postmodernism has infiltrated libraries to any great degree. I only want to point out that some librarians are pushing for postmodernism in libraries, and that we shouldn't take them on their word.
The first half of this post had me ready to scream. I got a masters and started a PhD program in anthropology before switching to LIS -- the first half of this post reminded me of many of my most frustrating experiences there! I spent a few years arguing against throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- just because "science" has been misused to support the existing hegemony, that doesn't justify deserting it altogether for a radically postmodern perspective.
ReplyDeleteFor example, you mention the role of post-colonialism and reconsideration of the imposition of "scientific" superiority. But even more recently, development agencies have gone out with the assumption that spreading Western scientific principles would help everyone. In the 1970s, the Green Revolution brought early GMO rice to Indonesia, where locals were encouraged to drop their traditional seeds & farming methods in favor of scientific methods -- super-rice and petrochemical fertilizers. That led to greatly increased yields for a couple of years, then massive problems with pests and water shortages. Arguing for the constructivist validity of the traditional farming methods would not have influenced this situation. The scientific research done by Stephen Lansing did help matters -- he studied the traditional practices and used computer simulation models to show how the traditional methods worked to control pests, manage the water supply, and ensure optimal harvests. In this case, the powers that be (the Indonesian government) came to respect the traditional methods -- not because they should be given equal consideration as an alternative constructed reality, but because a thoughtful scientific study showed them to be equally valid and more locally appropriate.
In relation to library science and collection development, we absolutely need to represent a variety of perspectives on the matter. I read many of those early "scientific" studies about the intellectual and moral inferiority of "primitives" to gain a better understanding of the history of anthropology. It is not our role to play the authoritarian knowledge-master and only offer those works that represent currently accepted knowledge claims. But teaching people how to evaluate those claims -- including encouraging them to read competing views to compare the arguments -- is part of our job.
One of my old professors liked to suggest gathering some radical postmodernists (those extreme constructivists that deny an objective external reality) on the roof of the Empire State Building and questioning the objective reality of gravity... (Not suggesting pushing, just listening to them backpedal on their theoretical pronouncements to justify their unwillingness to fly!)
"2. As to the "positivist narratives" driving this country's institutions, we can be skeptics without abandoning objectivity."
ReplyDeletePositivism is only one philosophy of science. Abandoning science altogether is not an appropriate response. Yes, we all walk into scientific inquiry with cultural baggage and biases -- in that sense, we could argue that it is socially constructed. My social knowledge and background influences the topics I will be interested in studying. But at the heart of the scientific method is an assumption of an objective external reality.
When we get to studying human behavior, that gets trickier -- there are too many confounding variables that can't be controlled, which makes it easy to slip into extreme relativity. That is a fundamental difference between the hard sciences and social sciences. In agriculture, plant X can be reliably expected to perform a certain way in soil conditions Y and rainfall levels Z and so on. If it fails in the real world, one can assume that some factor was not optimal -- wrong soil conditions, irrigation failures, whatever. In psychology, it's not always so easy to determine why two people with similar demographic traits respond differently, even in controlled lab experiments -- too many confounding variables in their social experiences. So if we can never determine hard-and-fast scientific laws about human behavior, do we stop trying to learn?
The early post-modern critique was hugely important. It pointed out a lot of failings in the hegemonic scientific discourse accepted up till that point. But we can use it to improve our scientific methods! It frustrates me to no end when people take any theory to an extreme -- positivists can be as bad as extreme postmodernists, and in my experience they get to those extremes out of frustration in arguing against the other. We need a middle ground that breeds a healthy skepticism (I like to think of that as information literacy, the ability to evaluate an information resource) without denying either an objective external reality or the influence of social conditions on learned human behavior.
Angela: Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I agree that the misuse and abuse of science is a terrible justification for postmodernism. I'm glad you pointed out the Green Revolution; I was thinking of including Norman Borlaug in my follow-up post...one billion lives saved through science is pretty hard to beat.
ReplyDeleteAs to library science and collection development, you are absolutely right. I regret not making it explicit that I'm all in favor of collecting as many diverse perspectives as possible. Your example of studying outdated anthropology research is instructive: we need to understand all competing viewpoints if we are to reach the truth, but that doesn't mean that all competing viewpoints are equally valid. Like you say, teaching people how to evaluate information is our job, and that requires that we offer a range of information sources. Perspective is of the utmost importance if we want to be rational.
And the backpedaling of the rooftop pomos? It just goes to show that when it comes down to practical decision-making, no one is really a postmodernist.
The epistemologists I have the most respect for (Richard Rorty and Charles Sanders Pierce) offer a useful counter point. I think your critique against strong relativism (we can't ever know anything about anything) goes too far against rationally justified humility (we shouldn't claim more justification for our truth-claims than our evidence provides).
ReplyDeleteKnowledge construction simply avoids unneeded dogmatism in our search to justify our claims to knowledge.
In the meantime, what is so wrong with saying that the best knowledge we have today is nothing more than the best knowledge we have today? Our claims to facts and truth are justified only by the reasons we have for holding them (external verification, good methodology, science!) and not by a mystical appeal to some "reality" concept.
My problem with the insistence that our best ideas work better than flawed ideas because they are more "real" is that it is pointlessly metaphysical. It seems to be an appeal to scholasticism, where the best ideas were justified, not by the evidence we have for holding them, but because "God says so". Well, today I think we can safely say, whether or not God exists, our scientific method is the most reliable method we've yet found for creating knowledge about the world. Why not continue in that vein? Whether or not they conform to an external reality, conclusions that are verified by good science are more worthy of belief than others? It doesn't matter if science is more "real" than other methods: it works better.
This is what it boils down to: science and intellectual rigor can't really tell us what is "real" or more accurately, since humans can't experience all of reality directly, we couldn't tell a more "real" answer from a less "real" answer. Knowledge construction embraces this humility. Let's not try to do more than we can do. Let's build the best knowledge we can, test it, and keep rejecting claims that don't work and build better understanding as we go.
Claims that ideas are more "real" than others aren't any more useful that Scholasticism's claims that some ideas are more godly than others. At the end of the day, we're still going to test them rationally according to the best tools and methods at our disposal. Our best ideas are nothing more than our best ideas, seeking to ground them in "god" or "reality" just gets in the way of more effective methods of justifying them.
Nicholas: If you like Peirce and Rorty, I can only assume you are somewhere between pragmatism and neo-pragmatism, so here is an appropriate response for the pragmatist: realism works.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, realism provides the best explanation and the greatest evidential support for the instrumental reliability of science. The consistency of our causal explanations would be miraculous if the objects of scientific inquiry did not really exist. Likewise, we can apply multiple experiments across many theoretical domains to corroborate scientific claims, and this is only possible if the objects of experiment really exist. In a simple since, it's all about inference to the best explanation, and realism is the best explanation for why science works.
I think I follow the line presented in this article: Boyd, R. (1983). On the current status of the issue of scientific realism. Erkenntnis, 19, pp. 45-90.
Thank you for your response. I'm out of practice, but the response to "realism works" is "That something works should be enough, no need to build a metaphysics on top of it."
ReplyDeleteObjective reality can be a useful assumption and denying it rarely leads to useful conversation. So I want to be clear that what I'm doing is looking for a defense for epistemelogical humility, for defending "the best we know" simply as "the best we know" without resorting to external metaphysical justifications.
I have some work to do, but I'm convinced that a refutation of the suggestion that Realism is a necessary foundation for library work may be found in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre (primarly Whose Justice, Which Rationality and Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry) and in Richard J. Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermaneutics, and Praxis.
I also completely agree with: "teaching people how to evaluate information is our job, and that requires that we offer a range of information sources. Perspective is of the utmost importance if we want to be rational."
What I'm not seeing is how Realism respects perspective.
Comment 1/2: Hi all, I've been a bit hesitant to jump in, for I fear it may take a very thoughtful conversation and turn it into something about me. However, I also feel there are a few things I need to respond to. I am uncomfortable being positioned as a radical who feels we can jump off the Empire State Building and survive (I'm fine with the radical part).
ReplyDeleteI posted these comments over on friend feed, but feel it is useful to repeat it for folks who may not see that (and amplify a few):
If you would like to engage in a discussion of objective reality, we can do that. I should be clear...that's not what the Atlas is, It is a theoretical framework, not a philosophical one. It aims at how people behave and how libraries can fit into that, not how the world is. I'm not going to deny being a constructivist, but I would not go so far as to say I am a complete relativist who thinks we make the universe through conversation (as was implied in this post).
I'm a pragmatist...I understand this to be a very unsatisfying answer, but we can debate about whether a table is a table all we want. What I am more interested in is what people associate with tables, how they relate them to other things (objects, ideas, emotions, people), and use those relationships to make decisions. This is directly relevant to social constructs...like libraries (not a natural phenomenon). The role of the library, even the tools of the library, like universal classifications, are socially constructed agreements. The fact that the library exists may be testable and objectively verified, but what it does? Pure social compact stuff. Are we going to say that moving from chained shelving, to august reading rooms, to book warehouses, to information commons is an evolution towards some final truth? Or is it a reflection of the communities we seek to serve?
Take that table again. When I ask what is the definition of a table, the only response is a definition that depends on other social constructs like language, and a near infinite number of empirical variables (where you grew up, what experience you have with tables, cultural expectations, vocation, etc.). Once those variables exceed a handful, traditional methods of validation break down (figure out an ANOVA for infinite dependent and independent variables).
The nature of reality is not unimportant, and I love this discussion, but it fails to scale in social constructs. Even the philosophies and theories we are discussing are founded on ongoing conversation and argument. Science itself is founded on the principles of error. That is that all understandings are our best explanation of the best data we can muster. It is always assumed that both better data and better explanations are possible. Which area we investigate is a decision. Each explanation colored by our current understanding. If libraries are founded on a more definite understanding of the world where right and wrong are absolute, than we had better get them out of the academy.
Comment 2/2: I also think it is a bit of a leap to claim that in constructivism truth is defined by some sort of majority vote. Throughout the Atlas I talk about how the library has a stake and a place in conversations, not simply to lie down and "give them what they want." Take your example of the student seeking to define homosexuality as abnormal. It is a bit more complex than how it is presented. For example, the DSM-II itself was a product of a scientific process. Furthermore to not be aware of the fundamentalist literature will ill-prepare a library member to operate in the world. Librarians present multiple perspectives. That doesn't mean that we have to agree with all the perspectives...that's the whole point of activism. In the prevailing concept of librarians being unbiased it quickly turns into all arguments are equally valid. What's interesting is that I think we'd both agree that this is wrong. It's just you are willing to say because some of those folks are right, and some are wrong universally, and I would say that they are right or wrong given a complex interplay of personal and social factors.
ReplyDeleteIn the civil rights example, there are plenty of "scientific studies" that could be used to justify inequality and mistreatment of minorities. Those views have changed and new science has been done. You can say (and I can live with) that this was better science and better data, but the reason we did the additional studies was a social process. Far from chastising librarians for their involvement, I would praise their involvement because it stepped out of a prevailing "truth" to do what a community saw as right.
Finally in the comments we talked about whether we are discovering knowledge or creating it. Once again for a behavioral standpoint - that is in studying what people do and how they act - I have a hard time seeing the difference. If someone really believes they can fly, they'll jump off the building. As a librarian, I sure hope we try and stop them.
I'll end with this. Thank you for starting this discussion. It is one that is too often missing in the library literature and conference scape that focuses on functions rather than an underlying worldview. It is a deeper understanding of what librarianship is that will propel us forward, and a healthy informed debate that will lead to this understanding.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteFor some reason you comments came through in triplicate; I deleted a comment because it was a duplicate, not because I wanted to censor anything you wrote.
One of the most difficult things in discussing constructivism is the willingness of the participants to equivocate between metaphysical (ontological) relativism and epistemic relativism, and I've made it explicit that I'm keeping these distinct. As I wrote in the previous post, you are most certainly NOT a metaphysical relativist or fact constructivist. But, you are advocating a form of knowledge constructionism.
As you describe Conversation Theory, it is an epistemic relativism. In your book you explicitly define knowledge as a set of agreements (p. 32) and you list things from facts and logic to personal narratives and "more crude persuasive techniques" as fair game for creating agreements (p.40). Agreements are "flexible" (p. 40). Other examples can be found in my previous post. In the absence of any discussion to the effect that some justificatory methods are better than others, the implication is that all methods of justification are equally valid so long as they result in agreement. Again, this is epistemic relativism, so you may want to edit your knowledge creation thread if you aren't advocating epistemic relativism.
That being said, this particular post was not directed specifically towards your book. As to the previous post which was a review of your book, I still stand by my assessment: First, as I just wrote, Conversation Theory is an epistemic relativism, though not an ontological relativism. Second, the treatment of knowledge is philosophically sloppy. I realize it is a book of theory, not philosophy, but theorizing about a core philosophical concept such as knowledge requires a bit more explication and a bit more attention to consistency. Finally, the theoretical aspects of New Librarianship have been previously discussed in the works I cited (Nitecki, Budd, Shera, etc.) and in many more. It would behoove you to include some discussion as to how and why your theory is either similar to or a break from extant theories about the foundations of librarianship. Otherwise, you seem to be pushing a false dilemma.
Thanks Lane for the pointers and the getting the continuing the conversation.
ReplyDeleteDave: It’s a bit hard to tell how far you’re taking the idea of “social constructs.” Even a thoroughgoing realist can admit that language is a social construct. A realist might say that we construct a language to enable us to talk about objective reality; the fact that the language is socially constructed doesn’t affect objective reality. For example, French people have a different set of agreements for their language than English speakers—we can all admit that—but the French and English speakers are still talking about the same reality, we can say they agree with each other or disagree, etc. Perhaps you are just acknowledging that some things are more controversial than others. If a patron were to ask, “Is capitalism the best economic theory?”, I’d have to say not only that I don’t know, but it’s a matter of ongoing controversy, and I could point out some material to help the patron become acquainted with the matter and develop an informed opinion. But if the patron asks, “What is the capital of Vermont?” or “What is the distance from the earth to the moon,” I don’t think there’s much point in telling the patron that language is a social construct and science is an ongoing conversation, etc., and I don’t think it’s “authoritarian” to provide the patron with a definitive answer. Everyone must acknowledge that there are different degrees of controversy to different statements, and we can carry on from there. It seems to me that if you are just making uncontroversial statements about the social nature of language, I don’t see that you need to argue here with the realist (or non-constructivist). If you are saying that there is a social aspect to knowledge, again you might be saying something humdrum or something controversial. For example, if you say that a bunch of scientists got together to develop a system that determined that the distance between the earth and the moon is so-and-so, we can all agree with that. But I don’t see how that could be used to guide the activities of librarians. If you are saying that librarians should inform the patron that it’s controversial what the distance is between the earth and the moon, I’m not sure that is useful. You could get into a serious skeptical discussion (how do we know that there isn’t an evil demon toying with our efforts to measure things), but I hope that’s not what you’re suggesting. So maybe you could shed some light on just how what you’re proposing is different from what a non-constructivist approach to librarianship would be. (Sorry to say, I don’t have a copy of your book yet, and you may have already answered all of this in your book. But if you could give me some clues here, that might keep me satisfied until I get the full story from your book.) Incidentally, thanks very much, Dave, for getting involved in this discussion.
ReplyDeleteYes! What Paul H. said!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to stick with Lane's suggestion and separate the ontological and the epistemological (though I admit to probably blurring this line). I'm not arguing about the nature of reality, rather that librarians need to be aware that how people construct knowledge matters...that is relational and individual. So I have no problem with a librarian simply giving and answer to how far the moon is from the earth...however, that distance varies, do you include that information? The variance of that distance is derived through a series of methods and have some different explanations - gravity is a no brainer, but what is gravity is still a mystery. So how far you go in giving an "answer" is going to be dependent on how complex a member's understanding is (or needs to be).
ReplyDeleteWhere constructionism comes into play is in the much more complex world of what that answer means to the member. Is that a number they care about because of an interest in astronomy? How about measurement? How about the history of science? How about philosophy where the member is interested in how we can know that measurement at all. That context of the answer is very important, and complex. It is also, I would argue, developed through an ongoing conversation within the member, between the member and a librarian, and with their communities (and society at large).
If librarians feel there is a set answer with a universal context (I realize too broad a statement) then we are missing the boat. Ultimately we find that the definition of an "answer" is what is constructed. We see this time and again in reference evaluation, for example. Librarians feel they give out great answers, and members see the response from a librarian far from complete.
Bottom line is that while we can argue about the nature of reality, facts are only a part (and I would argue with questions of any significance a decreasing part) of what our members are dealing with.
In terms of warrant and truth or knowledge versus belief brought up in the comments and Lane's earlier post, While I can see the difference being argued, as a behavioral scientist, I don't see the distinction in action. People act on knowledge and belief in this vocabulary. If we want to facilitate knowledge development we need to have a much more complex understanding of knowledge than an accumulation of facts. It is the relation of facts to each other and the relation of beliefs to those facts that matter. If that is philosophically sloppy, I'll work on that.
If librarians want to play a role in improving society, they must engage in the world of beliefs as well as knowledge (once again a distinction I do not make). Librarians participation in Civil Rights, Patriot Act, privacy, etc, is a social discourse and based more on belief than some objective reality.
David: Thanks for the latest comment. It seems your position is that, rather than focus on the evaluation of beliefs (as fact, opinion, knowledge, etc.), we should be concerned with how these beliefs influence actions. Sounds like good old pragmatism and I'm glad you've made the clarification.
ReplyDeleteJust a couple of things I'm still not understanding:
(1) You write, "we need to have a much more complex understanding of knowledge than an accumulation of facts." Reducing knowledge to a mere accumulation of facts is terribly naive, and I'm with you in distancing myself from such a reductionist position. However, as an analytic philosopher, my concern here is with evaluating methods of justification: which track the truth, which are most reliable, etc.. As my advisor used to say, "your beliefs are only as good as the reasons you have to back them up". How do you propose we evaluate the reasons people have for believing that such-and-such is the case, if we should at all? Could some reasons for belief be better/stronger than others? Could some methods of inquiry be better/stronger/more reliable than others?
(2) You discuss the importance of the context of a member's information need, or, what "that answer means to the member." Could you explain how and why a realist approach fails to address this context and perspective? You write that "it is the relation of facts to each other and the relation of beliefs to those facts that matter" but this is entirely consistent with an objective account of rationality.
I don't know if my follow-up post clarifies my position any, but it may help.
Thanks for the conversation!
(Paul H. here, in response to Dave's comment.) It appears that we’re making a retreat from hardcore metaphysics and epistemology and are just talking about the nature of librarianship, which is probably a good thing. (I’m still dubious that metaphysical and epistemological questions have a real impact on librarianship.) Dave makes a valid point that sometimes answers to library members’ questions need to be put into context. I don’t know how far this point can be pushed, but it raises some interesting questions about the nature of librarianship. If a high school student asks a reference librarian at a public library to help him find the distance between the earth and the moon, of course the librarian could point out that this distance varies, but the student might be satisfied with a simple average or a rough estimate. This really might be all that a student needs, and it would be a bad idea (I think) for a librarian to insist that the student and the librarian need some time to explore how this measurement is made, the history of such measurements, what determines the variability of the distance, etc. It seems to me just common sense (or at least common knowledge for librarians) that sometimes library members need just simple answers to their questions and sometimes they need something more complex, and sometimes they need a lot of context for their answers and would appreciate such a discussion. It’s also common sense that some questions are more controversial than others (from “Who are the current senators of Idaho?” to “Can fetuses feel pain prior to 24 weeks of pregnancy?”). I see no problem with librarians trying to determine what the library user really needs and using that to guide their responses and how far to probe the question. (In the old days I think they called this “the reference interview.”) But I believe that this is really dependent on how far the user wants to go, not on some mission of the librarian to enlighten society. On the other hand, I could believe that there might be an argument for librarians to push harder to enlighten patrons rather than just give them what they want (in a broad sense), but I would like to see this argument. I think that would be quite interesting. For instance, I’m an academic librarian, and I believe that academic librarians have an obligation to try to teach students something about using the library whenever they ask a question at the reference desk. But I also think that this is dependent on the students’ desires and needs; if a student really just wants a quick answer about a source of information and is under a severe deadline, I’m not going to insist on teaching them something. So far, my sense is that Dave is recommending that librarians be sensitive to the relative complexity of questions and to the needs of library users, and I think this is very sensible. But is this really something that goes beyond what librarians have always been taught? If Dave is pushing for something beyond this, I would love to hear that argument.
ReplyDeletePaul, I don't think I'm advocating for librarianship to come to a radical new mission, in fact I think I'm promoting a return to a very old mission. I think where we may disagree (maybe not) is where knowledge resides. I come from the perspective that it is internal to an individual, and cannot be truly externalized. Books, webpages, DVD's, etc. are representations of knowledge, can be used in forming, validating, and (yup, I'm not giving up) constructing knowledge, but it is not a simple transfer process. Given that, the focus of librarians (and here I think we do agree) is on the knowledge process - which I see in conversation theory.
ReplyDeleteIf we look at it this way, then knowledge acquisition is a uniquely human process and that is where the focus of librarians should be. In essence librarians and libraries are about learning, not warehousing knowledge containers (because, I would argue that would be warehousing people). The collection and building are just tools in this mission. These tools will change.
The implication also affects how we prepare librarians. They need to understand communications, and learning first and foremost, not cataloging, and processes.
Lane, I'm off to read the follow-up post.
David: Thanks for the mention on the online knowledge supplement. I do, however, have a question, and I don't want to gum-up your site.
ReplyDeleteYou write that I "present an alternative approach to the constructed approach to knowledge presented in the Atlas (the Atlas is all about conversation, not about agreement)." Yet, the Atlas makes it explicit that knowledge is constructed out of agreements. You write in the book that "agreements, and their relationships to one another, form the basis of what we know" (p. 40), you define knowledge as a set of agreements (p. 32), and you write that conversation isn't enough, "to learn something, we must seek agreements." (p. 222).
What am I missing?
(Paul H. here again.) I appreciate your taking the time to help me understand your views, Dave. I hope you don’t feel ganged up on by me and Lane. I think both he and I are delighted by someone (i.e. Dave Lankes) who brings fresh theoretical ideas to thinking about librarianship. At this point in the discussion, Lane’s comments are in the spotlight.
ReplyDeleteI’m beginning to understand your approach to knowledge. As you say, the focus of knowledge is not books, it is people. Knowledge is not truly expressed in books but in the behavior of persons, particularly in their linguistic behavior. (But we still need to have some way to refer to books and other “knowledge representations” (your terminology).) At this point, I’m becoming concerned that any disagreements we have are purely semantic, such that you are just giving names to aspects of librarianship that are different from those that are traditionally used. I don’t think you believe that you could take all the behavior that pertains to librarians and libraries—reference transactions, materials acquisitions, cataloging, library school instruction, etc.—and just seamlessly fit your theoretical framework over all these activities and leave them unaffected. I think you intend your theory to be prescriptive, i.e. having consequences that recommend changes in the activities that currently involve librarianship. So (after you’ve attended to Lane’s comments) can you provide some examples of how your theory entails that current library-related activities are misguided and how these activities should be changed (and not just re-named or re-conceived)? This might include “reference transactions” between librarians and library users, acquisitions activities, and librarian education.
Thanks, Dave.
Lane: I will clarify my language. What I meant to say that my purpose with the Atlas is to start conversations about librarianship not to force folks to agree with me.
ReplyDeleteWorks for me. Thanks Dave!
ReplyDeletePaul: the short answer to examples is that why I wrote a book :-) There two types of examples: understanding why newer library practices like the commons model makes sense, and then suggested newer practice. For example retiring catalogs that act as inventory systems with learning managent systems. Also expanding the concept of reference from one on one to more social including lots of different folks.
ReplyDeleteLane in the comments on his post reviewing the book said that I didn't really propose anything new if folks have been keeping up with current trends. While I wouldn't go that far I am the first to say not everything in the Atlas is brand new. Instead I was working towards a framework that explains why some of them make sense, while others do not. Take social networking. From the premise of conversations (and language) they make sense as a librarian service. However not simply throwing up a catalog search interface in Facebook. Likewise tagging makes little sense because of a focus on an item and not relationships.
(Paul H., again.) Thanks, Dave. I'll just have to get my hands on a copy of your book to get to the next level of understanding your views. And, sure, it's easy to be cavalier about "items", until one is talking about one's own BOOK! Ha! Just kidding, Dave. I'll be in touch again if I feel like I can contribute to the discussion.
ReplyDelete