In Defense of Hyperlinks

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 7 (3):79-89 (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In On the Internet, Hubert Dreyfus notes that by moving documents from libraries to the Internet we make ourselves dependent on search engines to locate the information we need. Because search engines are incapable of understanding the semantic content of documents, he suggests that we risk losing access to the information we archive online. I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the strictly hierarchical libraries that Dreyfus prefers and conclude that there are lines of inquiry that such rigorously-structured hierarchies actively resist; namely, they resist questions dealing with relationships between objects and questions dealing with aspects of objects that are secondary to the hierarchy's branching principle. In other words, there are good reasons to move documents from hierarchical libraries to the unstructured Internet. I then discuss the salient features of a search engine that could make relevance judgments of the sort Dreyfus claims are impossible.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,401

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Search engines, personal information and the problem of privacy in public.Herman T. Tavani - 2005 - International Review of Information Ethics 3:39-45.
Nihilism and Information Technology.Alireza Mansouri & Ali Paya - 2020 - Persian Journal of Philosophical Theological Research 21 (4):29-54.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-02-21

Downloads
79 (#274,326)

6 months
13 (#197,488)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Ian Stoner
Saint Paul College

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Add more references