Ronald E. Day

Clearing up “implicit knowledge”: Implications for Knowledge Management, information science, psychology, and social epistemology

“Implicit knowledge” and “tacit knowledge” in Knowledge Management (KM) are important, often synonymous, terms. In KM they often refer to private or personal knowledge that needs to be made public. The original reference of “tacit knowledge” is to the work of the late scientist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi (Polanyi, 1969), but there is substantial evidence that the KM discourse has poorly understood Polanyis term. Two theoretical problems in Knowledge Managements notion of “implicit knowledge,” which undermine empirical work in this area, are examined. The first problem involves understanding the term “knowledge” according to a folk-psychology of mental representation to model expression. The second is epistemological and social: understanding Polanyis term, tacit knowing as a psychological concept instead of as an epistemological problem, in general, and one of social epistemology and of the epistemology of the sciences, in particular. Further, exploring Polanyis notion of tacit knowing in more detail yields important insights into the role of knowledge in science, including empirical work in information science. This article has two parts: first, there is a discussion of the folk-psychology model of representation and the need to replace this with a more expressionist model. In the second part, Polanyis concept of tacit knowledge in relation to the role of analogical thought in expertise is examined. The works of philosophers, particularly Harre and Wittgenstein, are brought to bear on these problems. Conceptual methods play several roles in information science that cannot satisfactorily be performed empirically at all or alone. Among these roles, such methods may examine historical issues, they may critically engage foundational assumptions, and they may deploy new concepts. In this article the last two roles are examined.

The “Conduit Metaphor ” and the nature and politics of information studies

This article examines information theory from the aspect of its “conduit metaphor.” A historical approach and a close reading of certain texts by Warren Weaver and Norbert Wiener shows how this metaphor was used to construct notions of language, information, information theory, and information science, and was used to extend the range of these notions across social and political space during the period of the Cold War. This article suggests that this legacy remains with us today in certain notions of information and information theory, and that this has affected not only social space in general, but in particular, the range and possibilities of information studies.

Totality and representation: a history of knowledge management through European documentation, critical, modernity, and Post-Fordism

This article presents European documentalist, critical modernist, and Autonomous Marxist influenced post-Fordist views regarding the management of knowledge in mid- and late twentieth century Western modernity and postmodernity, and the complex theoretical and ideological debates, especially concerning issues of language and community. The introduction and use for corporate, governmental, and social purposes of powerful information and communication technologies created conceptual and political tensions and theoretical debates. In this article, knowledge management, including the specific recent approach known as “Knowledge Management,” is discussed as a social, cultural, political, and organizational issue, including the problematic feasibility of capturing and representing knowledge that is “tacit,” “invisible,” and is imperfectly representable. “Social capital” and “affective labor” are discussed as elements of “tacit” knowledge. Views of writers in the European documentalist, critical modernist, and Italian Autonomous Marxist influenced post-Fordist traditions, such as Otlet, Briet, Heidegger, Benjamin, Marazzi, and Negri, are discussed.1

Poststructuralism and information studies

Poststructuralism The meaning of the term “poststructuralism” is not without controversy. Culler (1982) has pointed to some of these problems, notably how different theorists have attempted to distinguish “structuralism” from “poststructuralism” using different criteria. Chalmers (1999, p. 1111) states that “structuralism focused on a notion of a shared, commonly understood language that individuals would use as a basis for each utterance or action. This aspect of the theory was later criticized as unrealistic ... To take account of such issues, there was a move to ‘poststructuralist’ theories of knowledge and interpretation.” Framing the discussion in terms of literary analysis, Culler (1982, p. 22) writes, “In simplest terms, structuralists take linguistics as a model and attempt to develop ‘grammars’-systematic inventories of elements and their possibilities of combinations-that would account for the form and meaning of literary works; post-structuralists investigate the way in which this project is subverted by the workings of the texts themselves.” Another problem in making such a division between structuralism and poststructuralism is that late structuralists such as Roland Barthes (for example in S /Z [Barthes, 19741) adopted poststructuralist modes of analysis that subverted stronger structuralist claims. In information studies, the term “poststructuralism” is commonly associated with Michel Foucault’s work under the term, “discourse analysis.” In critical legal studies, poststructuralism was discussed in terms of Derridean deconstruction (see, for example, Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, 1990; and On the Necessity of Violence for Any Possibility of Justice, 1991). Farmer (1993), following critical legal studies, has broadly addressed poststructuralism in the legal research process and in information studies. Farmer (1993, p. 392) states that poststructuralism may be characterized by its rejection of “master narratives” and “foundational claims that purport to be based on science, objectivity, neutrality, and scholarly disinterestedness.” It

Paul Otlet's book and the writing of social space

This article argues that a close reading of Otlets notion of the book in his Traite de documentation, along with the general metaphysics in his Monde, reveals a concern with force and dynamics which undermine traditional notions of the book, and raise questions about accepted readings of Otlet which characterize his work as positivistic.

Death of the user: Reconceptualizing subjects, objects, and their relations

The article explains why the concept of the user in Library and Information Science (LIS) user studies and information seeking behavior is theoretically inadequate and it proposes a reconceptualization of subjects, objects, and their relations according to a model of ‘double mediation.’ Formal causation (affordances) is suggested as a substitute for mechanistic causation. The notion of ‘affective causation’ is introduced. The works of several psychoanalysts and continental and Anglo‐American philosophers are used as tools to develop the model.

LIS, Method, and Postmodern Science

This article discusses scientific method and LISs difficulty in being a modern science. The epistemological crisis in modern science during the last thirty years, however, gives LIS a central role to play in postmodern science. Implications for this turn are suggested.

Kling and the “critical”: Social informatics and critical informatics

The article discusses Rob Klings notion of the critical and how this term is embodied in Klings social informatics and in works of other authors, which we identify as belonging to critical informatics. Issues of method and the notion of the empirical are discussed. The importance of such analyses in regard to social life and professional education is discussed.

Tropes, history, and ethics in professional discourse and information science

This article argues that professional discourses tend to align themselves with dominant ideological and social forces by means of language. In twentieth century modernity, the use of the trope of “science” and related terms in professional theory is a common linguistic device through which professions attempt social self‐advancement. This article examines how professional discourses, in particular those which are foundational for library and information science theory and practice, establish themselves in culture and project history—past and future—by means of appropriating certain dominant tropes in a cultures language. This article suggests that ethical and political choices arise out of the rhetoric and practice of professional discourse, and that these choices cannot be confined to the realm of professional polemics.

On Rob Kling: The Theoretical, the Methodological,and the Critical

We explore Rob Kling’s conceptual scaffolding for Social Informatics: his integration of theory, method and evidence and philosophical underpinnings and moral basis of his commitment to a critical stance towards computers and social life. He extended his focus on organizational practices and a lifelong meditation on democracy, value conflicts and social choices to the discourses of computerization and social transformation and to the education of the information professional. He came to his project through careful observation of organizational life and a critical reading of research conducted by other scholars and the rhetoric about ICTs, As Kling conceptualized it, the project of Social Informatics was to intervene in the social construction of the meaning, value, use and even design of technologies as shaped by discourse and education.