Encyclopedia Review
As Encyclopedia criticism collectively known approaches that either the plan of the Encyclopedia basically put itself in question or in the Enzyklopädik criticize specific components.
The Encyclopedia criticism is closely related to other critical disciplines of science as the knowledge and critique of science and the epistemology and theory of knowledge .
Bert Brecht sums up the encyclopedia review in a mishap :
- Who is the sentence good for?
- Who does he pretend to use?
- What is he asking for?
- Which practice corresponds to it?
- What kind of sentences does it result in? Which sentences support him?
- In what position is it spoken? By whom?
( Bert Brecht , Miszelle representations of sentences in a new encyclopedia )
Approaches and motivations for criticism
Basic criticism
The most fundamental criticism of the encyclopedia's plan is fed by the tradition of radical skepticism , which fundamentally questions the possibility of knowledge . Any encyclopedic project would therefore be pointless, since there can be no fundamental truths . More modern and more moderate forms of skepticism no longer fundamentally question the possibility of knowledge, but demand a critical examination of hypotheses and thus question the idea of the encyclopedia to collect knowledge that is regarded as secure and to present it without critical discussion.
From this approach, Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) developed the idea of a kind of anti-encyclopedia, which does not represent a state of knowledge and research that is described as certain, but rather puts opposing positions on an equal footing or balances them against one another. In his Dictionaire Historique et Critique ( DHC, 2 volumes 1695/1696, 3 volumes 1702, in the third, posthumous four-volume edition 1720, which is posthumous but still provided with Bayle's supplements; German translation. Historical and Critical Dictionary 1741-44) he undertakes a strict one source-critical examination of the theological, philosophical and historical knowledge of his time; the book was banned by the censors immediately after it was published . Nevertheless, the dictionary finds its readers and becomes the "Bible of the Enlightenment", Wilhelm Dilthey even speaks of the "Armory of the Enlightenment". Paul Michel : "He immediately adds a counter-opinion to every opinion in order to force the user to think independently. The paradoxes that he creates in his footnotes, of course, sometimes lead to a bottomless skepticism. ”The factual labyrinths that Bayle creates have the opposite effect of what a normal encyclopedia tries:
- They do not present knowledge as certain facts, but cast facts into doubt;
- the references to sources make facts criticizable and verifiable;
- The cultivation of the stylistic device of the footnote is also completely atypical for an encyclopedia .
Totality and scope
Another fundamental point of criticism of the encyclopedia relates to its claim to totality ; Traditionally the encyclopedia tries to depict “the knowledge of the world” ( Brockhaus ) or the circle of the sciences ( Artes liberales ); The Encyclopedia Criticism asks whether this is even possible and what size and form an encyclopedia must have that can meet this requirement, i.e. whether the 30 volumes of the current Brockhaus Encyclopedia (2005–2006) or the 64 volumes by Zedlers are sufficient Large, complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts which have been invented and improved by human understanding and wit (1732–1754) or even the 242 volumes of Krünitz's Economic Encyclopedia, or general system of rural, domestic and state economy in alphabetical order (1773 ff.) Are necessary.
Knowledge organization and information retrieval
The usefulness of an encyclopedia is called into question by the fundamental limitation that it can only be found in what is already known in advance . While simple questions about well-known phenomena (e.g. "How long is the Mississippi?") Are easy to look up, there is no information about the only vague ideas ("In which film was that funny riddle about pigeon species again?" ) the access or the language ("In which piece does the famous ta-ta-ta-taaam appear ?"). Typically, encyclopedia users need to know at least one relevant keyword in order to look up further information under it. This criticism also applies to searches in structured databases .
Information retrieval methods offer a partial solution to the problem , with which, among other things, large amounts of (mostly textual) information can be searched using a search engine . The networking of related areas by means of hypertext makes things even easier . The possibility of free linking means that knowledge areas no longer have to be arranged alphabetically or hierarchically , so that the information you are looking for can be accessed via various entry points.
Further approaches to encyclopedia criticism
Paul Michel put together a catalog of 13 specific points of view with reasons and motives for criticizing the encyclopedia in the pre-modern era:
- Contradictions between individual knowledge contents
- Gap between theory and practice, contradictions between opinion and empiricism
- Gap between knowledge and morals
- Religious motivation
- Irritation from new discoveries
- Insight into the perspectivism of knowledge
- Suspicion of ideology
- Language skepticism
- Criticism of the inadequacy of certain systems of order
- Fundamental doubts about the systematizability of knowledge
- Inefficiency of syllogistic inference
- Assumption of an anthropological weakness, limitation of human comprehension in recognizing the world
- Suspicion of too simple a transfer of knowledge
Web links
- Paul Michel : Nihil scire felicissima vita. Knowledge and encyclopedia criticism in the premodern. In: Theo Stammen, Wolfgang E. J. Weber (Ed.): Knowledge assurance, knowledge organization and knowledge processing. The European model of the encyclopedias (= Colloquia Augustana. Volume 18). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2004, pp. 247–289. Abridged web version on the homepage of the Zurich Encyclopedia Project: PDF file (119 kB) .
- Paul Michel: Huge and one-eyed. What kind of book is that? Everyone needs it. Nobody reads it. The question mark never appears in it. ? Solution: An encyclopedia. In: Uni Magazin. The magazine of the University of Zurich 4/98. ( Online )
literature
- Pierre Bayle : Dictionaire historique et critique . Edition of the editions Rotterdam 1697, Rotterdam 1720, Amsterdam 1734, Amsterdam 1750–1756, engl. Ed .: London 1734–1741 (Archives of European Lexicography, Section 1: Encyclopaedias. Volume 45). Complete edition: 22,065 pages on 287 microfiches in cassette 1998, ISBN 3-89131-343-8 .
- Robert K. Merton : On the Giant's Shoulders. A guide through the labyrinth of learning . Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1980 (also: Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1983. Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft; 426. ISBN 3-518-28026-0 ).