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Responding to Potential Theoretical Critiques

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Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization

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Abstract

We have already in preceding chapters addressed some of the critiques that might be lodged against the project of a comprehensive classification grounded in phenomena rather than disciplines. The purpose of this chapter is to bring together in one place our responses to these critiques.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Theory theory does support the goal of classifying documents also in terms of theory applied.

  2. 2.

    López-Huertas (2013) found that there were about 50 % of shared categories across three different cultures. The problem was that the citing order of categories was very different in those cultures. That is, hierarchies did not help in communication.

  3. 3.

    The discussion in this section benefitted from an exchange between Aida Slavic and Claudio Gnoli on the website of the León Manifesto (2007). We thank Aida Slavic for bringing these important questions to our attention. We note that Brown’s Subject Classification, the Bliss Classification, and some sections of UDC (such as the section on tourism) also allow for collocation of diverse works on a single phenomenon.

  4. 4.

    Chemists, for good reason, prioritize the number of protons in distinguishing chemical elements, and secondarily the number of neutrons and electrons. But a classification of chemicals can allow for all three distinctions, by providing facets for these.

  5. 5.

    In practice, this could be accomplished by using linked notation between phenomena, as recommended in Szostak (2013a), or by using extra-defined foci as suggested in Gnoli (2006). In the latter case, the notation for certain medical treatments using pharmaceuticals could follow the notation for chemical compounds.

  6. 6.

    If pharmacologists referred to a particular compound by a term that denoted its effects, a thesaurus could lead them directly to the appropriate terminology.

  7. 7.

    Olson (2007) had argued that a web-of-relations approach to classification would better serve the needs of women and various disadvantaged minorities than the extant reliance on hierarchy. Szostak (2014a) argued that the approach recommended in this book instantiates a web-of-relations approach. See chap. 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Rick Szostak

  2. Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Claudio Gnoli

  3. University of Granada, Granada, Granada, Spain

    María López-Huertas

Authors
  1. Rick Szostak
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  2. Claudio Gnoli
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  3. María López-Huertas
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Szostak, R., Gnoli, C., López-Huertas, M. (2016). Responding to Potential Theoretical Critiques. In: Interdisciplinary Knowledge Organization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30148-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30148-8_9

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