The tallest megalith in England, the Rudstone, is indeed bang on (0 degrees, 5 minutes W). It's close to Bridlington in line with Flamborough Head and various 'beacon hills' like Rudstone Beacon. Rudstone or 'Rood-stone' was at a crossroads, a cursus ran north-south and another east-west. As if X marks the spot. Can't have been a waymark, all these 'bright' and 'flame' places would've been sufficient for the purpose. What is information studies for? Presumably, the products and processes that result from information research are intended for some purpose. Information involves intellectual activity, and so it would seem that information products and processes contribute to some epistemic aims (i.e., goals related to knowing), among other possible aims. These aims are generally left implicit; explicating them, however, can clarify the contribution of a given study, product or service. It seems that information studies has long assumed knowledge as its default epistemic aim; understanding has emerged as an intriguing alternative in recent years, necessitating reconsideration of epistemic frameworks. a b c d Walton, Douglas; Brinton, Alan (2016-12-05). Historical Foundations of Informal Logic. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-93070-3. Introduction. Applied epistemology allows information studies to benefit from developments in philosophy. In information studies, epistemic concepts are rarely considered in detail. This paper offers a review of several epistemic concepts, focusing on understanding, as a call for further work in applied epistemology in information studies.

In the present study, the literature review began as an open-ended foray into the epistemological discussions of information studies, narrowing in on particular concepts, leading to the identification of understanding as a concept of particular import, a process that went took place over a period of two years. The goal of this review was not to present an exhaustive account of a pre-determined set of questions, but rather to come to grips with the complexity and uncertainty involved in the kaleidoscopic conceptualizations of epistemological concepts in information studies in effort to point to key opportunities for further development and application. In the course of reviewing the literature, these concepts were analysed with an eye toward developing a framework of understanding. Data Social epistemology accounts for the social nature of knowledge and justification. The quality and extent of an individual’s knowledge depends heavily on the people that individual deems trustworthy. The same is the case for group or public knowledge (knowledge generally accepted as true by a collective). Individuals and perspectives granted expert status have more influence on what is accepted, but this means that many individuals and perspectives will be ignored. Furthermore, it is often types or groups of people who are excluded, which becomes problematic if the perspectives of those groups are valuable to the task of knowledge creation. Standpoint epistemology takes this worry seriously. Standpoint epistemology studies the relationship between an individual’s social status and that individual’s epistemic position. Of particular importance to the theory is the notion that the relative power of individuals and groups influences who we consider to be reliable sources, causing us to ignore the perspectives of less powerful groups. Furthermore, standpoint theory argues that the exclusion of entire groups harms the entire enterprise of gaining knowledge. Bawden, D. (2007). Organised complexity, meaning and understanding. Aslib Proceedings, 59(4/5), 307–327. a b Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper; Brownlee, Kimberley; Coady, David (2016). A Companion to Applied Philosophy. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. pp.16, 19. ISBN 978-1-118-86913-0.Bellinger, G., Castro, D., and Mills, A. (2004). Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Retrieved from http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6p7ygbKY1) Fumerton, Richard. "Epistemology and Science: Some Metaphilosophical Reflections". Philosophical Topics. 45 (1): 1–16. doi: 10.5840/philtopics20174511. S2CID 171850411. Though information studies has mostly focused on information and knowledge, the discussion above suggests that there is much to be gained by focusing on understanding in information studies: Moshman, David (2015). Epistemic Cognition and Development: The Psychology of Justification and Truth. New York, NY: Psychology Press. p.124. ISBN 978-1-84872-513-3.

Not only is St Helen's highlighted by being half surrounded by water, it's on a hill from which, according to the council, you can see "the towers of York, Beverley and Howden Minsters and Lincoln Cathedral, with the naked eye". Helen is of course our Ellen, she of the roads and causeways as in Ellen's Way in Wales. Welton church contains a dilapidated figure of a Knight Templar and is a Grade I listed building, as is the village pub, The Green Dragon. a b c Coady, David; Chase, James (2018-09-03). The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-39314-6. First, it proposes the concepts of ontological and ontic understanding as a framework for bringing together separate discussions on understanding in information studies and philosophy. Historically, information studies has only recognized ontological understanding, in hermeneutics-based research ( Kelly, 2016). More recently, information science scholars have begun to recognize understanding as an epistemic concept, as developed in contemporary Anglophone epistemology ( Bawden and Robinson, 2016a). These two formulations of understanding have been seen as separate or even irreconcilable ( Bawden, 2016; Bawden and Robinson, 2016a). This paper suggests that ontic understanding is built upon ontological understanding. Thus, these two conceptualizations of understanding are not at odds with each other, but rather characterize different aspects of human activity and together paint a fuller picture. This insight stems from Heidegger's ( 2010) conceptualization of understanding (i.e., that all understanding is at root self-understanding), which is also compatible with Johnson's ( 2007) more recent aesthetic and pragmatic discussion of understanding rooted in modern neuroscience. a b c Fumerton, Richard (2009). Epistemology. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-2566-6. The basic mechanism of epistemology is "we believe that which makes us happy". It follows then that the basic mechanism of Applied Epistemology is ... um ... '''believing that which makes us unhappy"? Hardly. Perhaps something like "believing that which makes other people unhappy"? That would be mere contrarianism. Besides you can't force yourself to believe anything.

Background

Bruce, C., Davis, K., Hughes, H., Partridge, H., and Stoodley, I. (Eds.). (2014). Information experience: approaches to theory and practice (library and information science, vol. 9). Bingley, UK: Emerald. But does the reality live up to Wikipedians’ dreams? As a normative enterprise, applied epistemology is uniquely positioned to evaluate to what extent Wikipedia actually improves or damages the landscape of human knowledge. This chapter summarizes the Wikipedia debates within applied epistemology and argues that the social organization of the Wikipedia community shapes its epistemic merits and limitations. A useful framework for the epistemology of Wikipedia is veritistic systems-oriented social epistemology (see Fallis 2011). Systems-oriented social epistemology evaluates epistemic systems according to their epistemic outcomes for community members (Goldman 2011). A veritistic social epistemology takes true belief as the fundamental epistemic good (Goldman 1992, 1999). Thus, a veritistic systems-oriented social epistemology of Wikipedia evaluates Wikipedia’s impact on the formation and dissemination of true beliefs within its community of users. Alvin Goldman ( 1992) lays out five veritistic standards, summarized by Paul Thagard as follows:

Many scholars draw a link between information and knowledge, sometimes also including data ( Floridi, 2011; Rowley, 2007; Zins, 2007). Bosancic ( 2016), for instance, conceptualizes information 'sap' explicitly to connect data and knowledge. Floridi ( 2011) sees knowledge as multiple units of information that are embedded in a coherent explanatory network. In a similar move, Bates defines knowledge as ' information given meaning and integrated with other contents of understanding' ( Bates, 2006, p. 1042). Yu's ( 2015) view of knowledge differs here: Yu sees knowledge as a species of meaning (which, combined with data, forms information) that is derived from some socially acceptable knowledge-generating means (e.g., academic research). For Yu, knowledge is analytically isolated from its expression; knowledge (e.g., Newton's law of universal gravitation) can be expressed with different data (e.g., as a technical formula vs. in children's picture books) and thus furnish different information. It is worth noting, however, that some epistemologists have identified other types of knowledge: For instance, Worth ( 2008) argues for narrative knowledge (what x is like), which is compatible with Bruner's ( 1986) argument that story is a mode of human reasoning, complementary to logic. Additionally, van Manen ( 2014) draws from hermeneutic phenomenology in proposing pathic knowledge, as emotional or primordial knowledge (as opposed to gnostic knowledge, which is cognitive or processual knowledge); this seems to be the same dimension of knowledge that pedagogical philosopher James Taylor ( 1998) calls poetic knowledge (a holistic, from-the-inside experience of reality). It may be the case that narrative knowledge, pathic knowledge and poetic knowledge are different names for the same thing: van Manen ( 2014), for instance, asserts that narratives afford pathic knowledge and that pathic knowledge refers to a holistic, from-the-inside experience of reality. Coterminous or not, these concepts point to a dimension of human knowing that has apparently been overlooked in contemporary Anglophone epistemology but which may nonetheless have a place in information science, as Rowley's ( 2007) analysis suggests.

Questions

Day, R.E. (2014). Indexing it all: the subject in the age of documentation, information, and data (history and foundations of information science). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Coady, David (2012). What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. p.3. ISBN 978-1-4051-9993-3.

Fantl, J. (2016). Knowledge how. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, Spring 2016. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/knowledge-how/ (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6rKuS7LCM) Budd, J.M. (2011). Meaning, truth, and information: prolegomena to a theory. Journal of Documentation, 67(1), 56–74.Brown, J.S., and Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Bawden, D. (2016). The noblest pleasure: Theories of understanding in the information science. In D.H. Sonnenwald (Ed.), Theory development in the information sciences (pp. 283–299). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.