- published: 08 Mar 2014
- views: 115796
The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sciences, logic, and library and information science. Most fundamentally, however, it is studied in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). Different theories of knowledge have different implications for what is considered relevant and these fundamental views have implications for all other fields as well.
"Something (A) is relevant to a task (T) if it increases the likelihood of accomplishing the goal (G), which is implied by T." (Hjørland & Sejer Christensen,2002).
A thing might be relevant, a document or a piece of information may be relevant. The basic understanding of relevance does not depend on whether we speak of "things" or "information".
If you believe that schizophrenia is caused by bad communication between mother and child, then family interaction studies become relevant. If, on the other hand, you subscribe to a genetic theory of relevance then the study of genes becomes relevant. If you subscribe to the epistemology of empiricism, then only intersubjectively controlled observations are relevant. If, on the other hand, you subscribe to feminist epistemology, then the sex of the observer becomes relevant.
There's only one light on in the house
And that's the light up in the hall
And it's shining on the back of my head
And I'm concentrating hard on the cigarette
To the ashtray from the ashtray back to my lips
So I lean up from my easy chair
I rub my three-day beard
And give that thousand yard stare
As I recall all the time and money we spent
Before I became irrelevant
So the straw dog threw rocksalt
And the precious girl took a bow and walked
As I ran my finger over the screen door
Yeah every kiss has reeked on betrayal
Since my heroine jumped the guardrail
And decided who she wanted to be once more
Now every night I'm paralyzed
By the fear of rope burns and morning light
And the smell of wet cement
Since I became irrelevant
Now memory is just a flash flood
A thick and black sticky mud
And heartache it's like a breaking bone
It was always twelve hours on a missionary line
You think I would've spared some time
But I didn't I never went home
Now it occurs to me like blinds undrawn
Or a bullet from a shotgun
That she knew long ago what it meant
To feel irrelevant
Now I'm always smilin' cyryin'
And hidin' my intent