Metalibrarianship. Ch.5 : Defining Reality: Conceptual Framework

Nitecki, Joseph Z. 1993. Metalibrarianship : A Model For Intellectual Foundations of Library Information Science. http://twu.edu/library/Nitecki/Metalibrarianship .Volume 1 of The Nitecki Trilogy .Also available as ERIC ED363 346.

PART II:
DEFINING REALITY: Philosophical inquiry

It may seem strange that so many exceedingly intelligent persons are wholeheartedly devoted to a profession in which the main goal is to come up with creations with which their colleagues try to find fault . . . you may understand why great minds find this endeavor fascinatingly challenging--to wrestle from nature her secrets and formulate them in such simple and comprehensible language that they are indisputable.

CHAPTER 5: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Philosophy matters . . . philosophical ideas that have developed over the c enturies enter our culture in the form of a world view and affect us in thousands ways . . . the conceptual frameworks upon which entire academic disciplines rest usually have roots in philosophy -- roots so deep and invisible that they are usually not even noticed.

5.1 Introduction
Library collections of records, however defined, are among the basic concepts in LIS; they describe various aspects of reality. The concept of reality itself, similarly to that of infinity, has no conceptual limitations. The more complex the definition of its scope, the less intelligible it is; the more limited and specific its content, the less concrete is its meaning. In the broadest sense, reality is the totality of all existence, including the knowledge about it. We learn about reality by studying that knowledge. "Without this study, the librarian or information scientist is like a surgeon practiced in operational techniques and equipment, who knows nothing of the structure of the bodies on which he operates." 3

The nature, scope, and meaning of reality and knowledge are among the basic issues addressed by philosophy. "Philosophy . . . is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rat her than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation."4

Science focuses on the known reality, reducing our ignorance about it; religion addresses a much larger and unknown universe, which is a source of never-eliminated uncertainty.

Philosophical inquiry, motivated by intellectual curiosity, probes either of the above two approaches. "When we ask 'why?' concerning an event, we may mean either of two things . . . 'What purpose did this event serve?" or . . . 'What earlier circumstances caused this event?' The answer to the former question is a teleological explanation, or an explanation by final causes; the answer to the latter question is a mechanistic explanation." 5 Teleological answers are rooted in the religious notion of purpose. In time, teleological interpretations of reality lead to a metaphysical concept of the intellectually perceived form and essence of absolute reality and ethical considerations of value.

The mecha nistic answers relate to observable and verifiable scientific speculations and become a scientific method for systematic empirical verification of the hypothetical definition of reality.

5.1.1 Philosophical Overview
A brief philosophical discussion may be helpful for better understanding the theoretical writings in librarianship. Some contemporary writers on intellectual aspects of librarianship based their arguments on philosophy, implying close affinity between the two disci plines.

Better appreciation of philosophy provides an insight into the rationale for library operations. In the last few decades, with the 'information explosion,' a philosophical analysis of the library's role in society may contribute not only to a better response to society's needs but also to a more effective delineation of the library's leadership role in defining those needs.

On the surface, philosophy is everything to some people and nothing to others. That is so partly because of its complex and broad subject matter, which covers issues that are essential, but not directly obvious, to all of us. In librarianship, philosophy provides an opportunity to formulate a meta-inquiry about research into basic concepts of the discipline. For example, epistemology may provide a critical examination of library classificatory schema, metaphysical discussion can offer an insight into the essence of the discipline, logic serves as the methodology, and ethics formulates the code of behavior for library staff and patrons, while aesthetics has its impact on the library's internal ambience.

Today, philosophy is often perceived as a systematic attempt to understand knowledge and its ultimate nature. It offers rational explanation and criticism of theories about the universe around us.

5.1.2 Major Philosophical Questions
The scope of philosophy can be described in terms of questions, for which one seeks philosophical answers.

Epistemological questions relate to the nature of the discipline; they provide critical analyses of its paradigms by asking: How did librarianship originate as a discipline? What was the impact of the culture on its emergence and growth? What are its structure and validity? and, What is its methodology?

Metaphysical questions reflect on the essence of the discipline, its root meaning, the substance of information carriers, and their content.

Ethical questions are concerned with the judg ment of approval-disapproval, rightness-wrongness, goodness-badness, or desirability of action, as they apply to librarianship. Ethics is subdivided into (a) axiology dealing with judgments of value (e.g., the statement 'knowledge is good') and sociological or psychological explanations of that judgment, and (b) deontology, a judgment of obligation (e.g., the statement 'knowledge is desirable').

Aesthetics addresses issues related to beauty and to pleasant-unpleasant feelings aroused by variou s stimuli for their own sake. As already noted, it applies to the arts and their products, from an aesthetics of library environment to the format of printed books and their binding.

Logical questions deal with the theory and principles of reasoning that enable an individual to make a judgment or to draw conclusions which are consistent with the data at hand. The logical approach describes the processes involved in thinking, with special reference to the validity of conclusions drawn from premis es as in decision-making processes.

5.2 What is Philosophy ?
Since the definition of philosophy is itself a philosophical issue (Lewis, 1981), the multiplicity of its ramifications becomes almost an unsurmountable problem. Anyone can select any issue, within or outside philosophy proper, and define its meaning or criticize its interpretations by selecting some axioms of philosophy as the bases for the discussion.

"Philosophical problems arise when people ask questions . . . which, though very diverse, have certain characteristics in common;" they tend to be general, involving issues of principles, with little if any concern about their practical utility, and they are neither empirical nor formal.6 Their "generality, obscurity, and, above all, apparent (or real) insolubility by empirical or formal methods gives them a status of their own which we tend to call philosophical."7

Philosophical method is a critical speculation about things, facts, events, and ideas about them. Various approaches were developed at different times, in a variety of environments, none within any predefined format. Each approach contains some elements of different schools of thought.

5.3 Evolution of Philosophical Interpretations of Ultimate Reality8
Reality denoted the totality of human experiences of things, event, or ideas, whether conscious, unconscious, intuited, or imagined. The major philoso phical problem lies in distinguishing between experiences of something that actually exists, looks as if it exists, or gives the appearance of existing. The experience of 'actual' existence assumes an undeniable fact of existing, (e.g., 'this datum is wrong'), while the 'seeming' existence may be a subjective perception of apparent existence (e.g., 'this datum seems inappropriate in that context'). Therefore, the experience of something that appears to exist to an observer may not be the same as the 'someth ing' itself (Kant's 'thing-in-itself' illustrates the difference between the description of an event in a book, and the event itself). The 'seeming' idioms express the noncommittal probability of existence; the 'looking' idioms (appearance) describe the experience based on incomplete knowledge of 'something' experienced, hence differing from real existence.9

The distinction between appearance and reality is a philosophical cornerstone of Library Information Science, as defined in this book. The library provides records of knowledge in response to specific requests. Its service is satisfactory only to the extent that it provides data, information, or knowledge describing the kind of reality that the patron had in mind. The appreciation of the different ways reality can be perceived by library patrons seems to me to be the essential factor in providing effective assistance to them.

The records available in the library collection do not by themselves change reality. They describe its selected aspects, and in this sense they do, or may, change the perception of that reality. Therefore, indirectly, library records share, by means of the 'knowledge' they contain, the power to alter reality or its perception.

The review of the historical interpretation of reality confirms the assumptions of this study, that no ideas exist in isolation, and that the most basic concepts, debated a long time ago, are still of importance to us today.

The diagram below ou tlines major phases in development of definitions of reality. It began with the history of Indian (Hindu) thought which is "perhaps the earliest recorded human thought.

Fig. 5-1: An Overview of Historical Interpretations of Reality

Its four thousand-odd years of history . . . [embrace] the multitudinous phases of intense inquiry"10 which, with Chinese and Persian ways of thinking, constitute the pre-philosophical, theo logical stage of speculations about the universe. From Indian theology we have inherited the concepts of a perception of reality that ensues from sensory processes, and of inference, which allows for connecting an assumed nature of reality with one believed to be so.

Chinese cultural influences can be summarized by the Confucian humanistic focus on the individual's own nature, and Taoist naturalism in teaching nonaction, allowed Nature to take its own course through the process of unending transfo rmation (Chan, 1967).

The Persian teaching's of Zarathustra gave us the concept of dual reality: good and evil, two independent and mutually irreducible substances in constant competition with each other.

Philosophy proper began with the so-called classical period of the Greeks' reflective analysis of reality. While Thales questioned its nature, Protagoras defined the concept of relativism in pronouncing that man is the measure of all things, although all man knows is what he perceive s to be the reality, not the reality itself. Socrates initiated ethical philosophy, and Plato, the first epistemologist, introduced the notion of universal reality, an idea of essence which precedes the actual reality of experience. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, combined physical matter with platonic essence (form) in the concept of substance, which is subject to changing status between potential and actual reality.

Traue argues that the essentials of information science originated in th e classical period of philosophy, five thousand years ago. Summarizing the argument of another anthropologist, Traue states "that once the myths, the histories, the genealogies, the chronologies, the cosmologies were written down it was possible to make sustained comparisons, and with comparisons came an awareness of conflicting versions of events and a determination to discover the real truth."11

Medieval philosophy searched for conceptual solutions to philosophical problems in monasteries, cathedral schools, and newly emerged universities. The movement known as Scholasticism represented the Christian viewpoint, based on Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy and logic. Its philosophy, Judaic tradition, and Moslem teaching mutually influenced each other.

"In the context of mediaeval culture, the chief importance of Jewish philosophy lies in its mediating function between Muslim and Christian thought."12 All three religions attempted to relate their t eaching to philosophy. Jewish commitment to revelation as a prerequisite for any philosophical system reinforced the concept of monism that there is only one ultimate reality. Islamic philosophy introduced the concept of contingent and necessary being, an eternal essence of reality which requires absolute obedience to it. And Christian philosophy interpreted reality in terms of the trinity of God, as 'one in substance and three in embodiment,' implying that the nature of reality is based on one fundamental universal and a number of particulars defined in terms of that universal.

Modern philosophical analysis, from the Renaissance to the present century, can be roughly divided into three major groups: (a) empirical, focusing on the actual facts; (b) rational, logical, and metaphysical, emphasizing the intellectual aspects of reality; and (c) cultural and subjective, stressing intrinsic values of society.

Reflecting on the overall pattern in the history of philosophical interpretatio n of reality, one is overpowered by the variety of approaches and interpretations. The microcosm of that intellectual universe is represented in the collections of recorded ideas in libraries, which by means of their classification systems, provide some relational order for the many interpretations of reality.

The brief summary of different philosophical viewpoints presented here is admittedly polemic and retrospective. The discussion of different schools of thought is selective, not only to acco rd with space limitations, but also to focus on specific philosophical issues relevant to the theme of this book, the interpretation of reality in librarianship. Many of contemporary biases or convictions can be traced to the subconscious origins of their philosophical heritage.

The philosophical environment of the past is interpreted from the contemporary vantage point. The approach is vertical, tracing the changes in intellectual trends, rather than horizontal, analyzing in depth issues pert inent to the historical period reviewed.

5.3.1 Antiquity: Setting the Stage: Indian, Chinese and Other Philosophical Teachings (ca. 800 BC - 600 BC)
This pre-philosophical period is characterized by a struggle between mystical experiences of unknown reality and the need for a common-sense explanation of the mysteries of life. Emerging religions identified most of the major philosophical issues: from realistic and idealistic interpretations of direct experiences and in direct perceptions of reality, to the conflicts between individual needs and social ethics.

(a) Indian (Hindu) philosophy can be divided into three major periods:

The earliest recorded thoughts expressed in Vedic sacred chants offered what were probably the first philosophical insights into the universe. They developed later into a pantheistic belief in one reality and finally emerged in modern philosophies of monism and idealism. Vedic chants indicate that human interpreted life as a concrete experience, searching for means to free self from suffering. It was not an 'otherworldly' philosophy, since it assumed that there is no other world. It related to external, natural phenomena and nature worship based on a god-dependent, monistic belief in the single primal cause as creator of the universe.

Upanishads, the first philosophical writings, consisting of some hundred treatises, rejected Vedic pantheism and focused on the knowledge of the ultimate truth, 'looking within' for the reality of the universe. By asking the question "What is Brahman?" (i.e., what is the secret power in nature), they began the search for a single principle that defines all reality.

Followed by a common-sense philosophy based on common experiences, the new generation of religious thought and the philosophical school of Jainism believed that things have no transcendental essence: they are what they appea r to be since perception is the only source of knowledge. Jainist metaphysics was both dualistic and pluralistic: the animate and inanimate in the universe were both considered eternal, independent and numberless. "Every proposition is held to be only partially real or unreal or both real and unreal from different points of view."14

Buddhism (ca. 400 BC) expresses a revolt of reason against the transcendentalism of Upanishads, "At every moment, everything is changing itself into something else, and identity is only an illusion. Even the Self is defined as a continuous succession of ideas . . . External objects are . . . unique particulars. Universals are dismissed as ideal superimposition upon the object."15

Eventually, Indian philosophy was organized into several systems together representing the multivaried interpretations of the universe. Among the most famous were:
-- Realistic and pluralistic approaches of the Nyaya and Vaisesika who a cknowledged the external world as independently real, with no other substances such as water or earth to be considered the ultimately real. Universals of qualities, such as odor or sound, were also fully recognized as separate realities. The physical universe consisted of numberless and unique atoms. Nyaya-Vaisesika epistemology was both realistic and metaphysical: knowledge is obtained directly by perception. The inference, formulated indirectly, is an analogy; its test is its practicality, its essence is the correspondence. The ultimate human goal is achieved through transcendence of pleasure and pain after death.

-- The Sankhya-Yoga advocated a dualistic recognition of two independent ultimate principles: the transcendental, inactive, and unchanging essences of the conscious state, and the unconscious, active, and ever-changing essence of everyday life. Highest knowledge is an intuitive discrimination between these two ultimate principles.

-- The Mimamsa provided systematic investigatio n and reflection, about both the pluralistic soul and realistic material ends. Reality is "identity in difference," consisting of five categories: substance, quality, action, universals (both abstract and concrete), and nonexistence. "Knowledge is a changing activity of the Self, which, in knowing, manifests itself as . . . an object."16 Whereas the objects are known directly, the self is known indirectly.

-- Indian philosophy culminated in The Vedanta, an absolutistic beli ef that ultimate reality is an impersonal, theistic principle. The Absolute world and individual self are changeless, and the world is illusory, neither real nor unreal. Appearance is considered practically real but ultimately unreal, since all knowledge points to an object beyond itself.

(b) Chinese philosophy developed in four stages (Chan, 1967):

Confucianism and Taoism competing with each other, were the early definite schools of Chinese philosophy. Confucius (551-479 BC) represented moralism and humanism by advocating the doctrine of being true to one's own nature in harmony with the universe. Taoism was a revolt of the individual. Both philosophies interpreted 'Tao,' the way, differently. For Confucius the right way was an ideal of moral order to follow reason; for Taoism, 'tao' represented the totality of all things in the cosmic order, th e principle of ultimate unity within that totality. The farther a person is removed from that totality the less happy. The individualism of Taoism opposed government intervention into affairs of individuals, thus implying political anarchy.18

(c) Probably one of the first philosophical speculations of antiquity was the ethical question asked about morality of human behavior. Credited with the introduction of ethical dualism, Zarathustra, interpreted the moral dilemma in terms of the struggle between good and evil, truth and falsehood, leading to the concept of the Hebrew's Satan and the Christian's devil (Taraporewala, 1950). The 13th century Inquisition, administered in the name of the proclaimed 'good' and the modern justification for censorship, may claim its origin in the ancient devotion to Ahura Mazda, the God of Light and the hatred of Angra Mainyu, the Bad Spirit.

5.3.2 CLASSICAL AGE: Laying the Foundations [600 BC - AD 400]19
The beginning of the classical period is characterized by a freedom from direct religious restrictions. Philosophers concentrated primarily on the origins of the physical universe and its makeup, searching for the universal laws of uniformity.

A millennium of classical culture is a long period of building a cultural foundation that lasted for two thousand years. The Greek period is considered the beginning of intellectualism, characterized by the preeminence of reason. It marks the decli ne of the power of the priesthood and a preoccupation with death in Egypt, and departure from Indian philosophy's perception of the external world as illusion. With time, the Egyptian concept of spirit and India's search for inner truth blended in the Greek separation of religious myth from the reality of physical existence. Greeks introduced the idea of the freedom of individual, who could think for himself. They searched for the meaning of everything. And, most importantly, they interrelated all these as pects into a logical, orderly system.

(a) Sophists. The science began with Thales' defense of common sense and his insistence on the importance of the observation in the study of nature. His focus on the technique and method of thinking emphasized the importance of experimentation taking priority over the ideas deducted from it. The debate about the primacy of one approach over the other continues even today, and it is extended to contemporary philosophical disputes among some information and l ibrary scientists.

Pythagorean dualism distinguished between thinking and perception, the form and its appearance. Pythagoras' mathematical interpretations of relationships between various phenomena led to a priori mathematical reasoning, independent of empirical observations.

Heraclitus' law of change says that: "all things flow, nothing abides. Into the same river one cannot step twice." The relative stability of the universe is maintained by tension between the opposing forces of c hange and resistance to it. Similar tension is experienced today by librarians who must mediate between conflicting demands for stability and change in the management of library resources and services.

To Protagoras, everything was relative and knowledge was only of the perception of things, not of the things themselves. His statement that 'man is a measure of all things' implies that each man can have his own opinion. Consequently, there is always more than one view on any issue--a good argumen t for librarians' professional neutrality.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the most important philosophers of the classical period, made a critical impact on intellectual development in Western culture. Their philosophies also become cornerstones of the philosophy of librarianship.

(b) Socrates' method of learning through reasoning and his focus on definitions are implemented in the reference librarian's method of assisting the patron not by providing direct answer but rather through q uestioning technique, which leads the patron to proper resources.
(c) Plato's doctrine of ideal form, in which objects are tentative representations of unchanged ideas, is considered the true knowledge and becomes the credo of library idealists. On the other hand, in accordance with Plato's concepts of absolute values, the struggle for perfection and a paternalistic, authoritarian view of society were excusable if advocated in interest of society (Staveley, 1964).
(d) The Aristotelian scientific method of empirical accuracy, deduction, and investigation of specific things and situations formulated the bases for modern logic, physical and biological sciences, psychology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, literary arts, and information science.

Aristotle maintained that there are three elements in any change: a terminus a quo (e.g., a book or a librarian, or both); terminus ad quem (e.g., the end of the process, the reader) and the process itself (e.g., communi cation). Overlooking the distinction between books and the librarians' role in communication processes is often a cause of confusion.
(e) Porphyry combined Aristotelian logic with Neo-Platonic philosophy and developed a classificatory scheme, known as 'Porphyry's Tree,' based on the arrangement of types from the most comprehensive to the most specific. Many of the library classificatory systems are based on this approach. We have inherited from the classical period the concepts of metaphys ics (understanding the universe by logical, a priori, investigation of the meanings describing reality); and of epistemology, analyzing the very problems of that understanding (the possibilities, origins, and limits of knowledge and the problems of methodologies used in this analysis).

5.3.3 AGE OF BELIEF: Medieval Speculations [AD 400-1400]20
Politically and economically, those were dark ages, marked by disease, hunger, and despair. Philosophically, it was a pe riod of searching for the meaning of the human existence and return to the dominance of theology.

(a) The metaphysical tradition of the previous area was continued by Christian philosophers: Saint Augustine, who represented the platonic belief in ideas, and intuition; and Saint Thomas Aquinas who represented an Aristotelian philosophy of universals, and experimentation.
The philosophical contribution of the period is characterized by the changing focus of interest among philosophers. Sai nt Augustine considered knowledge as probability only. Roger Bacon shifted his attention from the 'why' to the 'how' of the explanation of reality, advocating deductive application of principles and experimental verification of results. His scientific mind anticipated the invention of locomotive, flying machines, and circumnavigation of the globe.

Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, defined philosophy as a knowledge of ultimate things based on reason, and science as a knowledge of facts based on general principles. His philosophy was derived from religious belief in the immortality of the soul, stressing the importance of the individual's self-realization. This view is reflected in the library's educational responsibility for providing environment for patron's self-education (Staveley, 1964).

William of Ockham was a conceptualist who believed that the universals are the products of mind, known intuitively. Considered by science as mere propositions, these concepts ought to be reduce d to the necessary minimum (Ockham's Razor).

In metaphysics, the predominant theme was the differentiation between the essence (the 'what-ness') and the existence (the 'that-ness) of reality. In epistemology a clear distinction emerged between (a) the Realists, focusing on platonic form (Augustine) or Aristotelian universality perceived as function of mind (Aquinas); (b) the Nominalists, limiting the meaning of 'universality' to the discourse about reality (Ockham), and (c) the Conceptualis ts, interrelating the above two positions, by limiting the concept of 'universal' to an abstract or ideal concept, shared by all members of the same class of particulars (Abelard).

(b) Mediaeval Judaism produced no formal philosophy, but engaged in philosophical reflections as a function of religion. These reflections represent an ethical monotheism in a concept of a universal God, represented in anthropomorphic and poetic description of his personality. This, in turn, introduced the concept of a philosophy of history as an unfolding drama of creation of man and his search for purpose in life. An applied philosophy was later developed in the form of literature. For example, the books of Proverbs (ca. the fourth century) considered wisdom the attribute of God, transcending human experience. This view was close to Plato's theory of Ideas, and in the book of Job (ca. 400 BC) to the definition of happiness as a reward for goodness.21

(c) Although Arabic philosophy did n ot develop its own unique system of ultimate reality or theory of knowledge, the Arabic focus on logic and methodology, accompanied by an interest in science, mathematics, and medicine, contributed significantly to empirical knowledge.

Two philosophers made important contributions to the understanding of the structure of reality. (1) Avicenna (980-1037) made a distinction between essence and existence, which corresponds to the distinction between God and the world, with the real world gradually emanating from its essence through many intermediate beings. (2) Averroes (1126-1198), distinguished between religion and philosophy, claiming in his concept of 'twofold truth' that a proposition may be true theologically but false philosophically or vice versa. He also maintained that "all thinking, although it occurs individually, becomes in a real sense universal, and that this universal aspect is more intrinsic to human cognition than is the fact that it is the product of such-and-such an individual or individuals."22

5.3.4 AGE OF ADVENTURE: Philosophy of the Renaissance [1400- 1500]23
The changes brought about by geographical discoveries clashed with the stability of classical tradition. This was reflected in several contradicting schools of thoughts: humanism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, skepticism and natural philosophy. Santillana summarized the philosophy of the period as a transition between antiquity and modern history :

Two centuries of changes shook the foundations of th e medieval world. The pragmatism of Leonardo da Vinci, the humanism of Erasmus, Machiavelli's realpolitik, Luther's moral revisionism, and Copernican heliocentrism marked the new chapter in the history of Western philosophy.

5.3.5 AGE OF REASON: Modern Philosophy [Seventeenth century]25

This was a formative period of modern philosophy. Characterized by the emergence of physical sciences and a decline of the medieval concept of knowledge, it was based on Aristote lian methodology. It marks the beginning of independence from classical authority, although the authors of this period continued to refer to Greek and Roman cultural inheritance. At first, the use of Greek or Latin reflected different modes of abstract thoughts. Descartes was the first philosopher whose style was simple and free of scholastic technicalities, making the French language and its philosophy a dominant force in Europe.

In this period the search for positive knowledge and for natural methods of explaining phenomena began in earnest. For many centuries Aristotelian logic based on the syllogism was a model for rational thinking. It provided the method for the scholastic philosophy's preoccupation with concepts such as essence, substance, and distinctions between essential and accidental properties. Yet the objectives of science differed from those of philosophy by focusing on the mathematical precision of natural laws and on a rational explanation of natural phenomena. Not until Newton wa s a distinction made between 'philosophy' and 'natural philosophy,' i.e., 'natural science.' Until then, both metaphysics and physics were still parts of the same philosophical inquiry.

Philosophers of the seventeenth century were also scientists. A distinction is usually made between the experimental part of their science, now obsolete, and their philosophical insights into theories of science. This was a period of scientific discoveries which led to a conflict between science and religion, cul minating in church persecutions of scientists like Galileo.

Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz used deductive and a priori methodology in their description of ultimate reality, and in the definitions of the limits of human knowledge. Descartes made metaphysics a scientific, rigorous, and intellectual discipline. Spinoza introduced an ideal system of metaphysical interpretation of scientific inquiries, and Leibniz reaffirmed that metaphysical truth is an a priori and logically necessary concept . In epistemology, the same three philosophers addressed perception as intellectual rather than sensuous apprehension (Descartes and Spinoza), making up an inner state of metaphysical individuals, the monads (Leibniz).

"Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza are read . . . for the richness and variety of their analyses of the concepts upon which our thought depends -- for their analysis of knowledge and certainty, appearance and reality, existence and identity, freedom and necessity, mind and matter, de duction and experiment." 26

5.3.6 AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: Philosophy of Natural Sciences: [Eighteenth century]27
The goal of philosophy in this period was to convert it into natural science by advocating the use of empirical observations in discovering facts. Philosophy becomes a kind of scientific psychological physiology or behaviorism, analyzing everything into ultimate atomic constituents. The theory of mind was mechanistic. Natu re was compared to an organism or a watch, and social life to a factory workshop. The senses were considered the sole source of knowledge. However, since necessity and identity are relations that cannot be discovered by observation or introspection, they cannot be real relations. Knowledge is of two kinds. One rests on formal criteria and can give no information about the world. The other, if it can provide such information, is only probable, never infallible. Knowledge can have only logical or mathematica l certainty. This distinction corresponds to the distinction between 'synthetic' and 'analytical,' between a posteriori and a priori knowledge.

The process of making philosophy a natural science was questioned by Kant's insistence, in Berlin's words, that

Kant distinguished between judgment and sources of data, beliefs, and attitudes, and logical principles applying to factual and speculative arguments. The question is 'What is the correct sort of evidence needed to prove the truth of such and such proposition?' and not 'How do I learn about the truth of such and such proposition?' The former is a procedural question about establishment of the truth. The latter is a psychological inference. It is confusing to ask, 'How can we know the proposition X?'-- which is neither 'What is the right evidence for it?' nor "Whence do we acquire the knowledge of X?' The questions relate to a distinction between the source of knowledge that is empirical, and the frames of references or systems of relat ions.

Eighteenth-century philosophers, impressed by the progress of science, felt that the same progress can be made in philosophy. They believed that different views, once stripped of irrational elements, will fall into a single, harmonious knowledge. Opposition to this optimism began in the middle of the century, arguing that man is not a machine and society not an inanimate or zoological universe.

5.3.7 AGE OF IDEOLOGY: Ideological and Cultural Reconstruction [Nineteenth ce ntury] 29
A period between Kant and Mach is marked by the reappearance of metaphysics in the form of Hegel's idealism , Spencer's evolutionary naturalism, and Marx's dialectical materialism -- all focusing on man and his historical development.

Emphasis was on the relationship between a mode of thought, its object, the relevant thinking about reality, and the reality itself. The thinking subject establishes the criteria for objectivity by presupposing the existen ce of the principles of conceptual organization. It is based on 'historical consciousness' developed in response to changing conditions. Here philosophy is not considered an extension of science, but a critique and justification of reason itself.

Some romanticists were also revolting against the previous century's philosophical glorification of reason. Objectivity becomes an intersubjective norm of common standards of judgment and criticism. This period also represents a reaction to the progress ive breakdown of the medieval Christian syntheses, by providing humanistic and secular bases for an ideological and cultural reconstruction through grandiose philosophies of historical synthesis.

Toward the end of the century a pragmatic viewpoint was formulated by Peirce. To him, reality was a constantly changing and unpredictable concept, anticipated metaphysically, described scientifically, and defined by the consensus. He rejected intuitive knowledge by insisting that everything be determined by its practical utility.

5.3.8 AGE OF ANALYSIS: Entering Uncharted Philosophical Territory [Twentieth century]30
This is a very active period of predominantly analytic, pragmatic, and linguistic Anglo-American philosophy and more technical philosophies of logical positivism, realism, and analytic philosophy. The twentieth century started with an attack on Hegel's Absolute Idea. Hegel replaced Aristotelian static logic with more dynamic dialectical logic, and hi s historical approach influenced Darwinian biology. On the other hand, the revolt against Hegel, generated for the most part by his initial followers, was twofold: the marxian revolt moved from dialectic idealism to dialectical materialism, while Dewey, Russell, and Moore shifted from a historical, political, and ethical approach to one that was logical and epistemological. Dewey and Santayana rejected Hegelian dialectics but retained his synoptic, total view of man and universe, while logical positivists r ejected the Hegelian world view totally, by excluding cultural, political, and social issues from their analyses. This period is characterized by the distinction drawn between a philosophy of hedgehogs, aiming at the understanding of one big thing, and a philosophy of foxes, interested in many little things -- or sometimes, in just one little idea.31

Overall, twentieth-century philosophy is divided into three viewpoints: (1) evolutionistic and idealistic notions of Bergson's time and instinct, Whitehead's life, process, and organism, Croce's history and art, and Husserl's existential insight; (2) the pragmatism of Peirce, William James, and Dewey, which combined metaphysical totality with scientific and logical methods; (3) the analytic philosophy of the strongly anti-metaphysical, logical positivism of Wittgenstein and Carnap, the ordinary language of Moore and Wittgenstein, and the mathematical and logical philosophy of Russell.

Toward the end of the twentieth c entury the cultural issues were revisited. The philosophy of reason, challenged by new irrationalism and anti-intellectualism, is bringing back the metaphysical approach and Kantian critical self-consciousness. The primary metaphysical concern was always coherence and an other-than-scientific interpretation of reality. Logical positivism rejected the metaphysical approach for its lack of empirical proof, rather than for the problems it raised. It focused on the way reality was described by science, rathe r than what it meant metaphysically. In epistemology Russell developed an important distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and by description. The ordinary-language philosophy of Wittgenstein and Ryle called for a restatement of metaphysical questions in terms of their linguistic structure. Husserl's phenomenology identified subjectivity with immediate experience, and the existentionalists Kierkegaard, Sartre, and others abolished a distinction between the external and internal worlds, claiming that all existence is a state of mind.

The significant syntheses provided by philosophical analysis are difficult to define. It offers a new outlook on old metaphysical problems by analyzing the concepts in metaphysics, and by incorporating the insight of past metaphysical speculations with new developments in the philosophy of science.32

5.4 What is Reality?
The question about reality, discussed in the previous section, is not yet -- and probably will neve r be -- fully answered, although a number of hypotheses about it were formulated. Science provides an experimental validation of their assumptions, mathematics and logic examine the propositions for contradictions, and philosophy clarifies their meaning. Schematically, we can summarize academic discussions by identifying three approaches to the definition of reality.
(1) The objective assessment of reality in the natural sciences provides a physical, mechanistic structure and abstract descriptions o f concrete experiences.
(2) In the subjective, psycho-sociological description of the reality of living organisms, biological sciences focus on the study of functions of organisms in environment. They provide a prescription for reality based on behavior and its consequences.
(3) Logical, philosophical definitions of the meaning of reality propose relationships between the structure and the functions within the 'known,' verified, experienced reality and less-known opinions about it. It i s a rational reconstruction of scientific descriptions, scrutinized by critical evaluation of its values and purposes.

Natural sciences describe external reality as biological sciences describe inner reality, while philosophy defines their meaning.

LIS can similarly describe its structure, functions, and forms in terms of the above three dimensions. The metalibrary intention is to draw attention to the unique phenomena in librarianship by identifying, scrutinizing, and clarifying assumpti ons made about its subject matter.

5.5 Major World Views
5.5.1 Introduction
The concept of 'world views' refers here to distinct ways of communicating ideas about reality. Reality relates to the totality of our experiences, the actual and real as well as the subjective appearance of real things in a form of ideas or events. Russell maintained that the issue of appearance versus reality becomes "one of the distinctions that causes the most trouble in philosophy."33 The controversy of whether our knowledge reflects true reality or its mere appearance is exemplified by the extreme view of skeptics doubting anything, or dogmatists "whose belief exceeds [their] cognitive ground for belief."34

Pepper proposes a third approach, a middle-of-the-road world hypothesis which "signifies that these objects . . . are not final products of knowledge and yet that they do contain knowledge", 35 and should be treated as u nique viewpoints.

The concept of reality and its meaning are essential in the philosophy of librarianship, since they define the nature of knowledge, which is being communicated in library transactions. World hypotheses become crucial in the model of metalibrarianship developed later in this book.

By way of synthesis, I have arbitrarily reduced various world viewpoints to three distinct groups of hypotheses: empirical, rational, and cultural. I believe that each of these groups of views has a uniquely different interpretation of knowledge, whether considered as an appearance or as an actual description of reality.

5.5.2 Empirical viewpoint: Philosophy of Objective Reality
The empirical approach focuses on the objective, physical existence of the universe. It sees reality as the totality of objects and events in space and time. And it is studied behaviorally, by reducing changes in the objects and events to causal laws and by focusing on particulars an d their properties, all subject to external influences.

Phenomena are interpreted mechanistically, as parts of systems moved by resident forces. This approach explains the present and the future in terms of the past; in its extreme case, it considers changes as merely consequential, mechanical, and aimless activities governed by mechanical principles. Perception of existence is based on sense perception, a physical experience provided by physical receptors. The source of knowledge is experience, wh ich often is pragmatic, evaluated in terms of the practical consequences of ideas.

5.5.3 Rational Viewpoint: Philosophy of Logical Reality of Ideas
Rationalism considers the universals as conceptual ideas developed in our minds. It is represented by the platonic school of realism which maintains that reality is ultimately independent of any knowledge of its existence.

The focus here is on the realm of essence, the universals that exist before the things an te res. It is a teleological theory of purpose, ends, goals, and values, explaining the past and the present in terms of the anticipated future. Epistemologically, it adds the subjective, intuitional, and instinctive perception of phenomena to objective, factual experience and its logical explanation. Metaphysically, it saw reality in terms of reasons for, and ends of, actions, explained by reference to some purpose. Ethically, it stresses value over obligations.

The mode of being is the essence , the necessary internal relations or functions which are sometimes identified with the substance. The essence determines the nature of things (Leibniz); it is the primary principle of the Kantian thing-in-itself, that is, something that can be 'thought' but cannot be known, making 'being' what it is. To Peirce, essence is the 'intelligible element of the possibility of being.'

In epistemology this view expresses 'the universal possibility of a thing.' Santayana sees it as a hybrid of intuited data and scholastic essence. In logic it is the definition of a thing, metaphysically considered independent of the thing's existence (Runes, 1981).

The theory of knowledge is idealistic, interpreting reality in terms of ideas or thoughts as essential components of knowledge. The knowledge itself is deductive, derived from reason rather than from experience.

5.5.4 Cultural Viewpoint: Subjective Philosophy of an Individual and his Society
This viewpoint is based on a socio-cultu ral hypothesis, considering universals as cultural expressions of reality, in which each universal is viewed in relation to the whole.

The mode of being is defined as existence in relation to interaction with other things, affecting them or being affected by them, as contrasted with the mere possibility of existence.

Focus is on the consciousness, formed physiologically by the nervous system and culturally by environment.

The theory of knowledge is phenomenological. It is limit ed to conscious experiences of sense-perceptions and to mental introspection. It affirms the reality of things-in-themselves but denies their knowability. Various interpretations of phenomeno-logical philosophy cover empirical, existential, and rational relationships between things and events.

The above classification of world hypotheses is adapted in my model as a threefold interpretation of environment that affects relationships among primary components of metalibrarianship.

Cita tion:
Nitecki, Joseph Z. 1993. Metalibrarianship : A Model For Intellectual Foundations of Library Information Science. http://twu.edu/library/Nitecki/Metalibrarianship .Volume 1 of The Nitecki Trilogy .Also available as ERIC ED363 346.