The Problem Of Selection

Formulation of the problem is of great importance to the kind of answer arrived at in the end. The formulation of the problem depends on the purpose of the analysis, and the purpose is to reveal some essential logical structures in the selection process. We are now moving into a broad and difficult field within theory of science, it is the field concerned with the relationship between general or ‘nomological’ knowledge and concrete, ‘ontological’ knowledge. This relationship between general, nomological knowledge and concrete, ontological knowledge is basic to understanding that the sciences are composed of a systematic, ‘law-seeking’ part, and when trying to use a science to investigate specific, practical problems and events. This can be applied to most of the sciences; theoretical physics being used on practical problems, for instance, Newtonian mechanics can be used to calculate the time for a specific solar eclipse, or other general physical laws can be used in specific weather forecasts, or theoretical economics can be used to explain specific economic events; or within our own archival realm, a generally formulated selection-typology or subject-typology can be used to decide whether a specific recording is to be selected or erased!

But a subject-typology is not scientific ‘knowledge’; and there are other differences. However, the structure of the problem of the relationship between a generally formulated subject-typology and a specific, concrete decision to select or erase is the same as in the just mentioned sciences. Of course this does not mean that a decision to select or erase has the same degree of precision as an astronomical calculation of the orbit of Halley’s comet; a comparison between selection-decisions and weather-forecasts might be more proper. Selection is not, and cannot become, a science in the classical sense of the word - but the structure of the problem of the relationship between general and specific knowledge is identical in the sciences and in selection-work. When the structure is identical, then we are permitted to use the available philosophical and methodological scientific literature in so far as this literature is concerned with the structure of problems and not for instance with the nature of the objects to be analysed. Before taking up these matters it is important to solve the formulation problem, or rather the two interconnected problems, which appear in the selection process. As it is in the sciences, the case in our archival interest of knowledge is split in two different ways of thinking. One of these is systematic and general and is concerned with the formulation of the archive’s selection-typology or subject-typology, and the other is concerned with the problems of the specific decisions of selection. The selection problem can be formulated as follows: the problem of selection is the problem about the interconnection there is or ought to be between the more or less explicit general subject-typology and the specific selection-decisions. The subject typology need not be explicitly formulated-in a way it is just our general conception of what ‘ought’ to be selected.