Thesis
A dialectical model of information retrieval : exploring a contradiction in terms
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2005
- Thesis identifier
- T11311
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Information retrieval (IR) is the process of representing the meaning of documents so that people who want the information they contain can retrieve them. It is, therefore, centrally concerned with information and meaning. It is concerned with them both on a pragmatic level in terms of designing and making IR systems, and on a theoretical level in terms of why and how these systems work and what this could have to do with the nature of meaning and information. This thesis is primarily about the theoretical and philosophical issues in IR. The main question discussed is the extent to which an investigation into the relationship between the subjective and the objective can improve our understanding of how meaning and information operate in IR. My thesis is that this relationship is a dialectical one, the subjective and the objective exist in a mutually antagonistic and dependent relationship, and that this new perspective on its nature can be theoretically useful for IR. Thus I develop a new theoretical perspective, the dialectical model, which is then used to improve conceptual clarity in a number of difficult and intractable IR problems. The aim is not to solve these problems but to provide a clearer insight into their nature The problems explored are: how to develop a theoretical framework for IR; how to represent the meaning of documents; how to evaluate or test these different meaning representation techniques. It has proved very difficult in IR to provide a theoretical understanding of why or how meaning representation techniques work (or don’t) and also to find a way of measuring their performance which is both reliable and valid. I argue that a clearer perspective on these problems and the ways in which they are (and are not) related can be provided by the dialectical model. Thus, when they are seen as part of the dialectical relationship between the subjective and the objective, as manifested in meaning and information, their complex and often contradictory qualities appears less puzzling. Research to resolve these problems has proved problematic because it is often an attempt to synthesise the dialectical relationship between the subjective and the objective. This is both necessary, to an extent, because meaning and information require a connection between the subjective and the objective, but also impossible and inherently unstable, because they also require a separation. They are both mutually dependent and in conflict. The main conclusions drawn from this investigation are that philosophical approaches to IR are potentially helpful in improving theoretical clarity but that this has, so far, been hindered by a failure to acknowledge the central role of conflict and paradox in meaning and information. The dialectical model is an improvement on previous work in this area because it provides a way of working with the many contradictory concepts within IR without trying to create an untenable synthesis. This can help provide new insights into IR both on its own terms and also through the ways in which it relates to philosophy.
- Resource Type
- DOI
- EThOS ID
- uk.bl.ethos.423868
- Date Created
- 2005
- Former identifier
- 717464
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