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This paper presents a conceptual framework for the intellectual virtues in the context of online search. Intellectual virtues are dispositions and skills that enable good thinking and wise reasoning, such as intellectual humility and attentiveness. Despite their importance, today the intellectual virtues tend to be underdeveloped across society. In light of the institutional role that online search plays in life today, there is an opportunity (perhaps an obligation) for online search to facilitate the development of intellectual virtue. The framework presented in this paper locates this development in three areas: the Searcher, the System, and Society. Major issues in information ethics and virtue epistemology are discussed for each of these areas, leading to recommendations for education, design, and research. This paper provides specific suggestions in this regard along with an agenda for future research at the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and online search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of a range of epistemic concepts that are commonly researched was conducted with reference to conventional epistemology and with reference to foundational approaches to justification. These were assessed in relation to previous research undertaken linking information behavior and experience with paradigm, metatheory, and discourse. This research assesses how the epistemic concept is treated, both within information science and within disciplines that have affinities to the topics or agents that have been the subject of inquiry within the field. An attempt is made to clarify the types of connections that are associated with the epistemic concept and to provide a clearer view of how research focused on information behavior might consider the questions underpinning assumptions relating to knowledge and knowing. The symbiotic connection between epistemics and information science is advanced as a suitably nuanced conception of socially organized knowledge from which to define the appropriate level at which knowledge claims can be usefully advanced. It is proposed that fostering a better understanding of epistemics as a research practice might also provide for the development of a range of insights and methods that reflect the dynamic context within which the study of information behavior and information experience is located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent and emerging viewpoints in embodiment and knowledge necessitate a reexamination of epistemology within and beyond the brain. Taking a sociocultural approach, this article covers two main types of epistemology beyond the brain, namely, embodied epistemology and nonindividualist epistemology. Using citizen science and music to illustrate related concepts of intuition, experience, and embodiment, this article describes intuition as a cultural system, beyond a purely individual possession. We describe how—in cultural practices such as music—intuition acts as mediator between knowledge and embodiment, and intuition is built and modified by experience over time. Building on Dick's ( ) notion of “holistic perspectivism,” we pose a holistic epistemology approach that embraces knowledge that extends well beyond the purely cognitive, in both embodied situations and systemic manifestations. As information research becomes increasingly interested in the role of the body and its relationship to information, knowledge, intuition, and memory, we argue that such an approach will uncover further dimensions of nonindividualist, systemic, and embodied knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]