Knowledge Organization (KO) is published by IMR Press from Volume 52 Issue 1 (2025). Previous articles were published by another publisher under the CC-BY licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement.
Consensus and Scientific Classification
Beckett Sterner 1, Atriya Sen 2, Joeri Witteveen 3
Affiliations
Article Info
1 Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, 427 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
2 University of New Orleans, Department of Computer Science, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA
3 University of Copenhagen, Department of Science Education, Universitetsparken 5, 2100 København Ø, Denmark
Abstract
Consensus about a classification is defined as agreement on a set of classes (concepts or categories) and their relations (such as generic relations and whole-part relations) for us in forming beliefs. While most research on scientific consensus has focused on consensus about a belief as a mark of truth, we highlight the importance of consensus in justifying shared classificatory language. What sort of consensus, if any, is the best basis for communicating and reasoning with scientific classifications? We describe an often-overlooked coordinative role for consensus that leverage agreement on how to disagree such that actors involved can still achieve one or more shared aims even when they do not agree on shared beliefs or categories. Looking forward, we suggest that investigating structures and methods for coordinative consensus provides an important new direction for research on the epistemic foundations of knowledge organization.