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Researchers Debate on Water Discipline(s)

Claudio Gnoli
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Researchers Debate on Water Discipline(s)

Claudio Gnoli

The results of research work are published mostly as articles in academic journals. Each article is thus an independent piece of science. But some of them touch on subjects relevant enough to stimulate reactions by other authors, who reply by another article. A lively discussion then develops across articles and journals.

Such a case recently occurred in library and information science (LIS) after an article by Claudio Gnoli, Richard Smiraglia and Rick Szostak that we already summarized in Information Matters. This six-handed article reviewed the arguments in favour of classification schemes that directly list real phenomena (water, stars, companies etc.) as opposed to traditional disciplines (chemistry, astronomy, economics etc.).

—Water in chemists’ laboratories, water in engineer’s pipes, and bottled water of economists is one and the same thing—

Such an innovative approach has triggered philosophical comments by Danish researcher Martin Thellefsen in two major LIS journals. Thellefsen is both intrigued by the approach based on phenomena and critical on its philosophical assumptions. He remarks that concepts of phenomena, such as “water” or “companies,” still are the product of some scientific discipline: it is chemistry that found water to consist of hydrogen and oxygen, it is economics that finds bottled water to be traded at a given price, and so on. So, how can we claim that we get rid of disciplines?

I answered in a short article that of course all knowledge is the result of some disciplinary work; still the concepts themselves may be concepts of a thing rather than concepts of the disciplines studying it. After all, water in chemists’ laboratories, water in engineer’s pipes and bottled water of economists is one and the same thing. As Jason Farradane recommended in the 1960s, we can identify water’s “unique definition” as that of a chemical substance and group water with the other substances in our scheme of phenomena.

By the way, my account of Farradane is contrasted by another Danish researcher, Birger Hjørland, who believes that each classification serves a different purpose so there is no unique way to classify water (although Szostak in turn remarks that Hjørland’s scholarly critiques never lead to any useful scheme). Thellefsen also objects that, by our phenomenon approach, we claim to know what is water’s essence, an old metaphysical notion that is not fashionable in the social sciences.

I concede that research is open and, in case future science will bring a different evidence, we are always ready to move water to some other place. Also, we can classify a book on water reservoir dams under buildings, that is away from substances, but provide a cross reference from there to water’s unique place among substances.

Substances and buildings lie at two different integrative levels, as substances occur in nature while buildings are human artifacts. My consideration of levels is appreciated by Thellefsen in his second article, as an evolutionary view that acknowledges the dynamicity and complexity of our world.

Here are the articles where this whole discussion is developed:

Cite this article in APA as: Gnoli, C. (2026, February 13). Researchers debate on water discipline(s). Information Matters. https://informationmatters.org/2026/02/researchers-debate-on-water-disciplines/

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  • Claudio Gnoli

    Librarian at University of Pavia, Italy, and researcher in knowledge organization. Author of Introduction to Knowledge Organization (Facet, 2020) and co-editor of ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization

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Claudio Gnoli

Librarian at University of Pavia, Italy, and researcher in knowledge organization. Author of Introduction to Knowledge Organization (Facet, 2020) and co-editor of ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization