Page 106 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

AN Lu, CHEN Miaomiao, SHEN Yan & LI Gang / The basic categories and core propositions of information science with Chinese characteristics 105

need to reform the discipline of information science in the national innovation and development
strategy. It is the most abstract form under the mature theory of information science, reflecting
the nature and theoretical form of the discipline. Its ideological representatives include QIAN
Xuesen and others. Its main ideology includes the understanding of the nature and status of
intelligence, comprehensive integration theory, engineering systems. When studying theoretical
basis of information science in China, Popper’s theory of the world 3, Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm
theory, the fourth world theory and other basic philosophical theories were introduced in as a
diversified cognition and ontological basis for the objective knowledge world. The phenomenon
of information science and its theories were explained from different angles. Therefore, we need
to use philosophy to explain the knowledge or information nature and essentials of Chinese
information science. In recent years, China has been emphasizing to promote the prosperity of
the philosophy and social science system and the innovation of the discipline. In 2016, XI Jinping
initiatively put forward the strategic task, “accelerating the development of philosophy and social
science with Chinese characteristics”. Information science meta-theory also became to be a hot
research topic, which had experienced three stages, including positivism, critical rationalism and
historicism, and exerted great influence on the theoretical research of information science [45] ,
which made the information science meta-concept, information science paradigm, information
science situational context, information science cognitive view and other terms appear. Social
epistemology empowers information science in China. It provides an epistemological foundation
and standardized classification methods for the development of the overall knowledge and
theoretical system, which further examines and solves the theoretical and practical problems of
information science in China at a high level of thought. The philosophy of information aims to
explore the nature of information and its dynamic principles, and is an indispensable part of the
theoretical foundation of information science philosophy. These theoretical foundations provide the
research ideas of Chinese information science from different angles, and explain and reconstruct
the theoretical system. Based on the above analysis, this paper puts forward the following
proposition about the theoretical basis of Chinese information science.

Proposition No.14: Philosophy, social epistemology, philosophy of information, and so forth are the
basis of information science theory.

Methodology is the doctrine of fundamental methods for understanding and changing the world.
The methodology of information science is a summary of the logical structure and interrelationship
of scientific research methods adopted to explore information and the law of information process.
The research methods then determine the specialization of information theory research and the
efficiency of transformation of theory into practice [46] . Here, it is quite appropriate to quote the
words in Pavlov: Selected Works “Science advances with the achievement of research methods.
With each step in the method, a broader prospect full of new things would open up before us.”