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The [[Dewey decimal system]] divides the universe, known and unknown<ref>[[001.9]], as any fule kno.</ref> into a subdivisions of 1,000. In its way, it offers infinite particularity, but only by subdivision of ten major categories: General reference, Philosophy, Religion, Social Sciences, Language, Natural Science, Applied Science, Arts & Recreation, Literature and History. | The [[Dewey decimal system]] divides the universe, known and unknown<ref>[[001.9]], as any fule kno.</ref> into a subdivisions of 1,000. In its way, it offers infinite particularity, but only by subdivision of ten major categories: General reference, Philosophy, Religion, Social Sciences, Language, Natural Science, Applied Science, Arts & Recreation, Literature and History. | ||
As with all taxonomies, these major categories carve nature in an idiosyncratic way — not to get all post-structuralist on you, but a way that is inevitably rooted in the western intellectual tradition in which Dewey, universities and their libraries operate. They produce arbitrary ''dis''-juxtapositions: Why is Logic (part of {{tag|Philosophy}}) nowhere near Mathematics (a part of Natural Science) or even Language? And so on. But we have to physically arrange our libraries ''somehow'', and that forced an intellectual commitment to ''some'' kind of order. | |||
Revision as of 12:10, 22 January 2019
The Dewey decimal system divides the universe, known and unknown[1] into a subdivisions of 1,000. In its way, it offers infinite particularity, but only by subdivision of ten major categories: General reference, Philosophy, Religion, Social Sciences, Language, Natural Science, Applied Science, Arts & Recreation, Literature and History.
As with all taxonomies, these major categories carve nature in an idiosyncratic way — not to get all post-structuralist on you, but a way that is inevitably rooted in the western intellectual tradition in which Dewey, universities and their libraries operate. They produce arbitrary dis-juxtapositions: Why is Logic (part of Philosophy) nowhere near Mathematics (a part of Natural Science) or even Language? And so on. But we have to physically arrange our libraries somehow, and that forced an intellectual commitment to some kind of order.