Is it possible to think about World 3 for information science?

A critical perspective

Abstract

Information science, as a discipline with claims to scientific status, has engaged in various debates regarding its cognitive status (Ávila Araújo, 2024; Columbié, 2021; Bates et al., 2021). At present, these discussions are deemed essential to understanding the role the discipline should play. Some of these debates have been framed within Karl Popper’s epistemological perspective, particularly his theory of the three worlds. In his work Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1992), aiming to escape the mind-body dualism and provide a better reconstruction of mental processes, knowledge, and the relationship with the external world, Popper divides the world into three categories: World 1, which includes the world of physical objects; World 2, where mental processes and experiences take place; and World 3, where objective knowledge resides. Within this framework, information science quickly identified the potential to ground the discipline in World 3, as information, its core object of study, is an entity present in that realm.