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Second, their importance for and influence in LIS have been examined.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>The findings of this paper are that it is not a trivial matter to define those epistemologies and to characterise their influence. Many different interpretations exist and there is no consensus regarding current influence of positivism in LIS. Arguments are put forward that empiricism and positivism are still dominant within LIS and specific examples of the influence on positivism in LIS are provided. A specific analysis is made of the empiricist view of information seeking and it is shown that empiricism may be regarded as a normative theory of information seeking and knowledge organisation.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>The paper discusses basic theoretical issues that are important for the further development of LIS as a scholarly field.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/00220410510578050","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2005,2,9]],"date-time":"2005-02-09T11:07:23Z","timestamp":1107947243000},"page":"130-155","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":94,"title":["Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information science"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"61","author":[{"given":"Birger","family":"Hj\u00f8rland","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022031320375441200_b1","unstructured":"Adorno, T.W., Albert, H., Darendorf, R., Habermas, J., Pilot, H. and Popper, K.R. 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