Embodied and dialogical basis for understanding humans with information: A sustainable view

Abstract

In this conceptual paper I suggest that hermeneutic phenomenological view on humans in the world can lay a premise to understand our embodied, dialogical way of living in the world with information of all kinds. This gives us ethical stance to the development of information‐intensive world and points out our limits as human beings. First, I explicate the implicit and explicit traces of phenomenology in the field of Library and Information Studies (LIS). After that, I continue to explicate how human beings and their relation to the world of information can be conceptualized also by the means of understanding, and dialogicality, with hermeneutic phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, 1985 and Hans‐Georg Gadamer, 2004 T. Then, I introduce the concepts and conceptions of understanding human beings as living bodies in the world, based on hermeneutic phenomenology of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, 2006. Together, these form a strong basis for understanding humans with information in their environment. Finally, I explicate why it is essential and meaningful to understand humans as embodied and dialogical, to be able to understand and examine information use, action, and interaction in our field in different contexts critically and sustainably.