Hermeneutics and information science: The ongoing journey from simple objective interpretation to understanding data as a form of disclosure

Abstract

This chapter looks to provide a selective history of some of the ways in which the use of hermeneutics can be deployed to provide a general ontology of information. An attempt is made to show how and why Capurro’s early work remains important to such a project, and how his constant and consistent reminders over four decades to the information community to keep re-evaluating its sense of praxis, its easily assumed conventionality, its self-declared limitations and its scientific and phenomenologically-assessable normativity all remain distinctly relevant. Through a close reading of Capurro’s Hermeneutik der Fachinformation, I try to show how Capurro’s place in the historic continuum of information hermeneutics should be acknowledged and to provide a short outline of areas of similarity and difference in the focus of a number of significant arguments made subsequently. I conclude with a brief discussion of how hermeneutic understanding and hermeneutically-informed methodology might continue to offer solutions to problems associated with the social practices that are embedded within information science.