Subject: Information Science
Course: Information Science Epistemology
Course holder: Miroslav Tuđman, full professor
ECTS credits: 5
Language: Croatian
Duration: one semester
Status: elective
Method of teaching: 1 lecture hour and 2 hour of seminar every week
Assessment: oral exam and seminar report
Prerequisites: none

Course description:
The course will give insight into the epistemological problems of information science such as the structure of science and structure of knowledge, the development of information phenomenon and the theory of knowledge development. Knowledge representation as a theoretical problem of information science, temporality of knowledge and knowledge obsolescence as well as the theories of temporal structure of knowledge will be discussed.
Also, the terms social epistemology, knowledge acquisition and collective memory will be explained. Theories of different kinds and types of knowledge as well as the methods of knowledge acquisition, control and management of social memory will be introduced.
Topics will be as follows: definition of epistemology and field of epistemology, types of knowledge, public knowledge, corporative knowledge, historical knowledge, network knowledge, intelligence as knowledge for action, information strategies and knowledge management, information ethics and ethics of informing, social action and social believes, application of social epistemology to information science, relation between the knowledge and information, truth and relevance and finally, relation between information, misinformation and disinformation.

Course objective:
The aim of the course is that students get knowledge and skills in evaluation of knowledge representation and to develop abilities to distinguish the knowledge representation from the knowledge acquisition. Also, they need to get known the methods of evaluation of different types of knowledge and to realize the differences in application and usage of specific knowledge types. Students will test the acquired knowledge and skills through written assignments and analysis of specific knowledge types and information types.

Reading list:
1. Goldman, Alvin. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
2. Kuhn, Thomas. Struktura znanstvenih revolucija. Zagreb: Naklada Jesenski Turk, 2002.
3. Steup, Matthias. The Analysis of Knowledge. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/. (05/16/2007)
4. Thagard, Paul. 1997. Internet Epistemology: Contributions of New Information Technologies to Scientific Research. URL: (http://cogprints.org/674/00/Epistemology.html). (05/16/2007)
5. Tuđman, Miroslav: Prikazalište znanja, Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada,   Zagreb, 2003.
6. Saracevic, Tefko. Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 50(12):1051–1063, 1999
7. Rafael Capurro : Intercultural Information Ethics. URL: www.capurro.de
8. Rafael Capurro: Towards an Ontological Foundation of Information Ethics (2005) URL: www.capurro.de
9. Rafael Capurro: Between Trust and Anxiety. On the Moods of Information Society. In: Proceedings of the Conference "The Age of Information: New Anxieties - New Opportunities" Institute of Communication Ethics Lincoln, UK, June 14, 2004. URL: www.capurro.de
10. Rafael Capurro: Ethics Between Law and Public Policy. In: Journal of International Biotechnology Law (JIBL) (2004) Vol. 1, Issue 2 / 2004, 62-66. URL: www.capurro.de
11. Rafael Capurro: Angeletics - A Message Theory. In:  Hans H. Diebner, Lehan Ramsay (Eds.): Hierarchies of Communication, ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2003), 58-71. URL: www.capurro.de

Reading list for seminar:
1. Social epistemology and information science
Shera, Jesse. 1970. "Library and Knowledge." Pp. 82-110 in Sociological Foundations of Librarianship. New York: Asia Publishing House.
Shera, Jesse. 1961. "Social Epistemology, General Semantics, and Librarianship." Wilson Library Bulletin 35:767-70.
Furner, Jonathan. 2002. "Shera's Social Epistemology Recast As Psychological Bibliology." Social Epistemology 16:5-22.

2. Epistemology
Steup, Matthias. "The Analysis of Knowledge." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ knowledge-analysis/
Descartes, Rene. "Of the Things Which May Be Brought Within the Sphere of the Doubtful."Meditations On First Philosophy.  

3. Social epistemology
Goldman, Alvin. "Social Epistemology." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/.
Bloor, David. 1976. "The Strong Programme in the Sociology of Knowledge." Pp. 1-19 in Knowledge and Social Imagery. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

4. Applying epistemology to information science
Popper, Karl. 1972. "Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject." Chapter 3 of Objective Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford (especially pages 106 to 117).
Harding, Sandra. 1992. "After the Neutrality Ideal: Science, Politics, and "Strong Objectivity"." Social Research 59:567-87.
Goldman, Alvin. 1999. "The Technology and Economics of Communication." Chapter 6 of Knowledge in a Social World (especially pages 161 to 182).
Meola, Marc. 2000. Review of Knowledge in a Social World by Alvin I. Goldman. College and Research Libraries 61:173-74.
Frické, Martin and Don Fallis. 2002. "Verifiable Health Information on the Internet."  http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw02/papers/refereed/fallis/.
Atkinson, Ross. 1996. "Library Functions, Scholarly Communication, and the Foundation of the Digital Library: Laying Claim to the Control Zone." Library Quarterly 66: 239-65.

5. Goals of epistemology
Thagard, Paul. 1997. "Internet Epistemology: Contributions of New Information Technolo¬gies to Scientific Research." http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/Pages/ Epistemology.html.
Paterson, R. W. K. 1979. "Towards an Axiology of Knowledge." Journal of Philosophy of Education 13:91-100.

6. Intellectual freedom and epistemology
Mill, John S. "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion." On Liberty.
Goldman, Alvin. 1999. "Speech Regulation and the Marketplace of Ideas." Chapter 7 of Knowledge in a Social World (especially pages 189 to 194 and pages 209 to 217).
Goldman, Alvin. 2000. "Reply to Fallis." Social Epistemology 14:331-32.

7. Information ethics and epistemology
McDowell, Ashley. 2002. "Trust and Information: The Role of Trust in the Social Epistemology of Information Science." Social Epistemology 16:51-63.
Fallis, Don. 2004. "Epistemic Value Theory and Information Ethics." Minds and Machines 14:101-17.