Sunday, June 3, 2007

David Weinberger on a crucial distinction (emphasis added)…

Behind our disagreement, ckridge, may be a difference about the role of categorization. Tagging systems think of themselves as providing navigational and re-finding aid. Traditional categorization systems sometimes thought of themselves as attempts to parse the real order of the universe.

Parsing the real order is a worthwhile activity, especially if one does not insist that there is only one way to carve up the goat (or the Solar System). And acknowledging there are many ways does _not_ imply that _all_ ways work.

One might of course argue, albeit tangentially, that no categorization systems actually think of themselves. Yet.
[tags]EiM, Everything is Miscellaneous[/tags]

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