Epistemology in information science: Mortimer Taube’s vision

Abstract

Faced with the epistemological discussion of the area, this article aims to discuss the epistemological approaches identified in Mortimer Taube’s scientific production. Therefore, this article specifically identifies such epistemological approaches that served as the basis for Taube’s scientific production and questions the theoretical constructs of this author. Methodologically, the study is characterized as qualitative, exploratory, bibliographic and documentary, without a chronological delimitation, and based on hermeneutics for the interpretation and writing of the results. The sources used were selected according to their specificity and because of Taube’s involvement with such institutions; they are: Association for Information Science and Technology, Duke University, Library of Congress, Columbia University, Digital Journal Storage Library, NASA Library, Biblioteca Nacional, University of Chicago Press Journal and the Library Quarterly. Of the 264 documents recovered, 124 were read and analyzed, and make up the corpus of this article. The results show that the epistemological approaches that permeate Taube’s works are Logical Positivism and Analytical Philosophy, and that their epistemological position can be identified by the Critical Epistemology approach.