Paul Otlet and the classification of sciences

Abstract

The split between the sciences and the humanities, although scientifically overcome, often remains both in practice and in relation to educational profiles of several (prestigious) academic institutions, and it strongly influences the evolution of those disciplines which are in various ways involved. The Rede lecture entitled The two cultures and the scientific revolution, held by Charles Percy Snow in Cambridge in 1959 contributed significantly to exacerbate this dichotomy. The lecture aroused, predictably, mixed reactions: part of the scientific community welcomed his theories and appreciated the decisive exposition of a clearly relevant problem of the modern world, while other scientists became strong opponents of his ideas. In this respect the concept of a third culture appeared and in the debate that followed and that is still extremely current, the documentary disciplines have taken on a significant role in an attempt to find a common field between the sciences and the humanities. This role is already recognizable in the years when documentation science was founded and theorized by the Belgian bibliographer Paul Otlet and it takes shape both in the application of its techniques – first and foremost classification – to the other sciences, and in the definition of and reflection on the very concept of ‘science’ carried out in respect to the recognition of the scientific status of documentation itself and of bibliology.