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All That Is the Case: Documents and Indexicality

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All That Is the Case: Documents and Indexicality Todo lo que es pertinente: documentos e indizabilidad Tudo isso é pertinente: documentos e indexicalidade All that is the case: documents and Indexicality Ronald E. DAY Department of Information and Library Science, Indiana UniVersity, USA, [email protected] Resumen Abstract Se discuten posibles epistemologías alternatiVas de la Three alternatiVe epistemologies of documentation are documentación, partiendo de la concepción otletiana, discussed, starting from the Otletian conception, fol- pasando por la reformulación de Suzanne Briet, hasta lowing with Suzanne Briet´s reframing, and finishing llegar al neo-documentalismo de Michael Buckland. En with the neo-documentalism of Michael Buckland. Re- lo que respecta al plano teórico, se pone en diálogo el garding the theoretical plane, Wittgenstein’s language juego del lenguaje de Wittgenstein y la perspectiva de games and Buckland’s perspectiVe on documentation la documentación de Buckland. El principal objetivo es are brought one in front of the other. The main objec- discutir las cuestiones de sentido y significado, apro- tive is to discuss the problems of significance and piándose de los conceptos de presencia y ausencia in- meaning, drawing on the concepts of indexical pres- dicatiVa. Se toman como objetos documentales de re- ence and absence. Some photographs of the late Pro- ferencia algunas fotografías del difunto profesor fessor Eduardo Murguia are taken as an example and Eduardo Murguía. Se llega a la conclusión de que el reference. The author comes to the conclusion that documento puede ser caracterizado no sólo como evi- documents can be characterized not necessarily as ev- dencia o prueba, sino como un índice, que puede re- idence or proof, but as an index, which can reVeal both velar tanto lo que está presente como lo que está au- what is present and what is absent in the documentary sente en el registro documental. record. Palabras clave: Murguía Marañón, Eduardo Ismael. Keywords: Murguía Marañón, Eduardo Ismael. Briet, Briet, Suzanne. Buckland, Michael. Documentos. Do- Suzanne. Buckland, Michael. Documents. Documenta- cumentación. Presencia. Ausencia. Legado. Signifi- tion. Presence. Absence. Legacy. Meaning. Sense. cado. Sentido. Referencia. Fotografias. Indecibilidad. Reference. Photographs. Indecibility. Content analysis. Análisis de contenido. It is common in modernity to define and discuss similar manner called “all that is the case”), but documents as being evidence in support of proof or rather, which express what is not, rather than facts. English language dictionary definitions com- what is? The reference to Wittgenstein’s early monly state this. It is stated in the beginning of Su- work is not fortuitous, for Wittgenstein’s Tractatus zanne Briet’s 1951 Qu’est-ce que la documenta- is founded on the same two general epistemolog- tion? (Briet, 1951, 2006) through an appeal to the ical premises that Otlet’s notion of documents is definition of “document” in Littré’s dictionary. In founded on, except at the leVel of a propositional Paul Otlet’s work it is an assumption that underlies assertion, rather than documentary evidence, his entire project of documentation, in so far as his namely, a theory of reference as naming, and is a social project founded upon an epistemological what often goes along with this in positiVism, a presupposition, namely, naïVe empiricism turned correspondence theory of truth between state- into a type of logical positivism, so that the world is ment and things. Such a position relegates all that known through the (bibliographical and documen- is not the case to the realm of the “unsaid” (Witt- tary) logical organization of representations. In Mi- genstein, 1922), which in the Tractatus is the chael Buckland’s well known article, What is a Doc- realm of non-truth conditions. ument? (Buckland, 1997), commenting on Su- This realm of the unsaid is meaningless for ful- zanne Briet’s work, this notion of document as evi- filling truth conditions, though it may be meaning- dence takes on renewed importance in terms of the ful in other ways, namely as mystical experiences work of information systems, namely to produce or even sensible performances that are part of the the eVidence used in arguments (in the sense of domain of representations for states of affairs in bibliographies) and also to produce materials that the empirical world. But these cannot be said be- may be used as eVidence for arguments. cause saying means, in this context, making truth But what about documents that are not evidence conditional assertions. That there could be mean- of “facts” about the world (what Ludwig Wittgen- ingful signs outside of these truth conditions, stein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in a Day, Ronald E. All that is the case: documents and Indexicality. // Scire. 22:1 (en.-jun. 2016) 57-63. ISSN 1135-3716. 58 however, is the perspectiVe that shaped Wittgen- events) or can be, in the sense of conditionality, stein’s later Philosophical Investigations, where the case. This will be important to our discussion statements that make truth assertions are just further on. one of many sensible expressions or “games” of language. Returning to Briet’s Qu’est-ce que la documenta- tion?, we should note that in this book’s opening In Philosophical Investigations the meaning of a page the definition of documents as being proof term is not sought in a definition, but in a descrip- or evidence is immediately problematized by her tion of its use. Or to put this in the language of as being incomplete, with Briet modifying this def- both philosophy (e.g., Frege’s distinction be- inition with the further qualification that a docu- tween Bedeutung and Sinn) as well as documen- ment is an indice (an indexical sign). Indeed, this tary studies, the meaning or ‘reference’ of a term qualification removes both documents and evi- is sought by looking at its sense. Sense in Witt- dence from the realm of ‘direct naming’ (where genstein’s ‘Blue’ and ‘Brown’ Books (composed the name and the named, like a definition and from 1933-1935) is indicated by “grammar”— a what is defined, appear to remain in the same term which needs to be understood both in a spe- scale of meaning, even if their documentary cifically linguistic and a non-linguistic, social, form—for example, the transition from an article sense. In the Philosophical Investigations the no- to its abstract—changes) to a world of pointing tion of “grammar” is expanded to and replaced by between different regimes or senses. “language games,” which refers not only to lin- guistic grammar, but to the social uses of cultural This is a certain type of ‘adVance’ upon Otlet’s forms that giVe language both sense and mean- definitional sense of documentary eVidence as ing (including reference). resting on a correspondence of meaning, without Michael Buckland’s article, Information as thing much regard to sense. In Otlet’s work, a docu- (Buckland, 1991) is the only Library and Infor- ment is ‘about’ something and that aboutness is mation Science article that I know of that men- repeated through higher and higher leVels of ab- tions mystical experiences as being possible “in- straction without loss of meaning. In Briet’s epis- formation.” Buckland notes in parentheses: temology, howeVer, there is no guarantee for pre- venting a loss or shift of meaning, as discourses (Note we are restricting our attention to physical about the named entities follow the documental- things and physical eVents. Some people would say ist’s act of naming in “initial” documentation (tax- that some of their knowledge comes from paraphys- ical sources, notably from divine inspiration. Others onomies and ontologies) and these discourses would deny any such non-physical source of infor- may contain their own grammars or language mation, but, to the extent that it may exist, infor- games so that the meaning or reference of the mation science would haVe to be incomplete if it entity changes because its sense changes. For were excluded. Not knowing what to say on the sub- example, compare the different senses for ‘water’ ject we merely note it as a possible area of unusual in ecology (e.g., ‘lake’ or ‘stream,’) and chemistry interest within information science). (‘e.g., “H20). In noting such, Buckland opens the door to not just information being a thing, but in a work a few (In philosophy these English terms, “reference” years later when he engages Briet’s works (Buck- and “meaning,” are sometimes used synony- land, 1997), he discusses things (or a being, an mously and sometimes not; it depends on antelope) as being information, and more re- whether we View meaning starting from the per- cently he more fully has discussed the problem of spective of empirical reference or from the per- sense as context (Buckland, 2015). spective of sense. From the first perspective, the meaning of a term is its reference, but from the I also note here Buckland’s use of the word “may” second perspective, the meaning of a term is a in the quote aboVe. This word acts as a condi- product of its sense, which then giVes it refer- tional, indicating what could or can be the case. ence, though this reference may involVe other In this context, what could or can be the case is than empirical referents—e.g., fantastic refer- sensible, and so, meaningful. The term ‘infor- ences, such as to unicorns and such.) mation’ does not only refer to statements made to empirical referents, which can be said to be true From the type of what we’ll call ‘logical positiVism’ or false. Rather, ‘information’ may also refer to of Otlet’s epistemology, sense is only possible in meaningful statements that are not ‘fact’ based, truth conditions, which Otlet sees as grounded in in the sense of empirical reference.
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