Information and Understanding

Abstract

Information studies is concerned with information, but what is information for? That question is usually answered with reference to epistemic aims, the default of which is generally assumed to be knowledge. Following recent work in epistemology, this chapter argues that, from the perspective of information experience, understanding is an epistemic aim well suited to the field. Understanding refers to the grasping of inferential and explanatory relationships among a body of information. Two forms of understanding can be distinguished: ontological and ontic. Ontological understanding is the background activity through which perception and mentation happen. Thus, ontological understanding is a matter of an agent's conscious and experiential engagement with their environment – in short, it is one's making sense of their situation. Over this background, ontic understanding is made. Ontic understanding can be defined as a coherent and self-transparent network of knowledge that has been constructed by a conscious agent through ontological understanding. All in all, the concept of understanding provides an account for how bodily experience, recorded information, and other forms of information can contribute epistemically in concert.