Cet ouvrage de synthèse sur les fondements théoriques et épistémologiques de la science de l’information répond à trois questions : – existe-t-il une science de l’information à part entière ? – comment se définit l’information, objet de cette science ? – y a-t-il une spécificité française de la science de l’information ? Ce livre compare les chemins parcourus par la science de l’information en France et dans le reste du monde. Il contextualise cette évolution à l’aune d’une diversité d’inscriptions disciplinaires. L’enjeu de la science de l’information est de concilier l’approche réaliste de la connaissance, l’approche individualiste des sciences cognitives et l’approche collectiviste où les domaines sont façonnés et les comportements sont modulés par les environnements, les cultures et les construits sociaux partagés. Cette étude sera utile à tous les chercheurs, étudiants et professionnels désirant approfondir leurs connaissances sur les fondements théoriques de la science de l’information.

This book explores the history of Library and Information Science (LIS) across non-English speaking European countries, including France, ex-Yugoslavia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal.

This book addresses some of the key questions that scientists have been asking themselves for centuries: what is knowledge? What is information? How do we know that we know something? How do we construct meaning from the perceptions of things? Although no consensus exists on a common definition of the concepts of information and communication, few can reject the hypothesis that information – whether perceived as « object » or as « process » - is a pre-condition for knowledge. Epistemology is the study of how we know things (anglophone meaning) or the study of how scientific knowledge is arrived at and validated (francophone conception). To adopt an epistemological stance is to commit oneself to render an account of what constitutes knowledge or in procedural terms, to render an account of when one can claim to know something. An epistemological theory imposes constraints on the interpretation of human cognitive interaction with the world. It goes without saying that different epistemological theories will have more or less restrictive criteria to distinguish what constitutes knowledge from what is not. If information is a pre-condition for knowledge acquisition, giving an account of how knowledge is acquired should impact our comprehension of information and communication as concepts. While a lot has been written on the definition of these concepts, less research has attempted to establish explicit links between differing theoretical conceptions of these concepts and the underlying epistemological stances. This is what this volume attempts to do. It offers a multidisciplinary exploration of information and communication as perceived in different disciplines and how those perceptions affect theories of knowledge.

The notion of information is multifaceted. According to the case, it is a simple signal or already knowledge. lt responds to codes and is inscribed into a social relationship. There are clearly many perspectives which the social sciences can take to analyse the notion of information. The economy cannot account for the majority of situations where, in the activities of production, consumption or exchange, the notion of information finds itself implied, although each school of thought has its own understanding of the notion of information. This book takes this observation as a starting point and goes on to clarify a contemporary debate on the economy of information which remains quite vague, making use of the ways in which different theoretical approaches deal with information. To seize the nature and scope of the transformations in our societies, a consequence of our new ways of handling, stocking and circulating information in the workings of the markets like Organisations, such a theoretical exercise seems useful. The organisation of the book results from this choice. The contributions gathered in one part deal with the role of information in the functioning of the markets, those featuring in another are more interested in the organisations. To favour an enriching cross-reading of approaches developed in the two sections already referred to, we have preceded these with a section gathering approaches (which are more transversal) developing different theories of information (according to perspectives which are, respectively, systematic, statistical or strategic).

Mirko D. Grmek (1924-2000) is one of the most significant figures in the history of medicine, and has long been considered a pioneer of the field. The singular trajectory that took Grmek from Yugoslavia to the academic culture of post-war France placed him at the crossroads of different intellectual trends and made him an influential figure during the second half of the twentieth century. Yet, scholars have rarely attempted to articulate his distinctive vision of the history of science and medicine with all its tensions, contradictions, and ambiguities. This volume brings together and publishes for the first time in English a range of Grmek’s writings, providing a portrait of his entire career as a historian of science and an engaged intellectual figure. Pathological Realities pieces together Grmek’s scholarship that reveals the interconnections of diseases, societies, and medical theories. Straddling the sciences and the humanities, Grmek crafted significant new concepts and methods to engage with contemporary social problems such as wars, genocides and pandemics. Uniting some major strands of his published work that are still dispersed or simply unknown, this volume covers the deep epistemological changes in historical conceptions of disease as well as major advances within the life sciences and their historiography. Opening with a classic essay – “Preliminaries for a Historical Study of Diseases,” this volume introduces Grmek’s notions of “pathocenosis” and “emerging infections,” illustrating them with historical and contemporary cases. Pathological Realities also showcases Grmek’s pioneering approach to the history of science and medicine using laboratory notebooks as well as his original work on biological thought and the role of ideologies and myths in the history of science. The essays assembled here reveal Grmek’s significant influence and continued relevance for current research in the history of medicine and biology, medical humanities, science studies, and the philosophy of science.