Taxonomy and Folksonomy
There are two systems for classifying and finding information on Transformatum — taxonomy and folksonomy — which are more commonly referred to as “categories” and “tags” respectively. Taxonomy divides things into ordered groups or categories. Folksonomy is a social approach to creating classification data (metadata) through the use of tags.
Both systems have their pros and cons. I will not get into that debate here, except to say that I think what I am attempting here is better than using either system alone. Rather than move entirely from taxonomy to folksonomy, I have decided to keep my categories completely rigid and allow my tags the organic freedom for which they were designed.
Putting Limits on the Number of Categories
Personally, I prefer categories over tags because of my OCD/perfectionist tendencies. I want everything to fit neatly into a box. However, the more I used them, the more I kept creating new categories. Pretty soon I had so many categories that I began wondering if I was being too specific and not general enough in my classifications? I went through a phase in which I deleted and recreated my categories several times.
What I was searching for were some basic high level categories that were fixed. I told myself that once I started using them I would never have to add a category ever again. Somewhere along the way I recalled studying Abraham Kuyper during my college days. I thought, what if the topics of my blog posts were treated like spheres of sovereignty (family, church, school, state, etc.)? My search led me to Herman Dooyeweerd, influenced by Kuyper, and founder of the approach called the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea. “Dooyeweerd developed an anti-reductionist ontology of “modal aspects“, concerning diverse kinds of meaning which are disclosed in the analysis of every existent thing” (#). These aspects soon became my blog categories.
Dooyeweerd’s Suite of Aspects
- Credal – faith and vision
- Juridicial – what is due
- Economic – frugality
- Social – social intercourse
- Biotic – life and vitality
- Aesthetic – harmony
- Ethical – love (self-giving)
- Sensitive – feeling
- Analytical – distinction
- Lingual – symbolic representation
- Numeric – discret quantity
- Spatial – continuous extention
- Kinematic – motion
- Formative – formative power
- Physical – energy and matter
Unfortunately, that attempt failed miserably and I went back to classifying everything as “Entries” (the main posts) and “Asides” (those that show up in the sidebar). As for the aspects, it was not that I did not think it was a good idea. I simply did not understand Dooyeweerd enough for them to work. For assistance I turned to the smartest person with whom I am acquainted, Gregory Baus, who also happens to be a Dooyeweerdian scholar. He and I went to undergrad school together. Check out Greg’s academic blog here.
After hearing my dilemma, Greg explained that the difficulty with the above list is that Herman Dooyeweerd’s aspects are highly abstract categories and most blog posts are about the interconnections (called “modal analogies”) or “structures of individuality” (i.e., concrete things, events). His suggestion was to identify what aspect “primarily characterizes” what the posts are about generally. Below is the working model.
Transformatum’s Dooyeweerdian Blog Categories
- Credal
Religion, theology, church, worship, personal beliefs, worldviews. - Ethical
Love, charity, right/wrong, morality, duty/obligation, home, family/parenting, romance/sex - Juridicial
Justice, law, government, politics, crime/punishment - Aesthetic
Art, photography, music, literature, film, design, symbols - Economic
Job/labor/employment, money, finances, supply/demand, macro/micro - Social
Interpersonal interaction, relationships, group activity, recreation, humor/satire, manners - Lingual
Language, signs, speaking, interpretation/hermeneutics (non-Biblical), attached meanings/ semantics (definitions) - Technical
Technology, tools, computers, construction (making/building) - Cultural
History, traditions, (cultural) anthropology, archaeology - Analytical
Education/schooling, logic, reason, philosophy - Sensitive (or Psychological)
Psychology , emotions, feelings, dreams - Biotic
Creation/nature (plants & animals), biology, agriculture, food, health/medicine - Physical
Geography, travel, transportation - Mathematic
“Natural” sciences: math, geometry, chemistry, physics, astronomy
You will note that the above list has two additions and three omissions from the original list of aspects. Since there are no “concrete things/events” primarily characterized (called “modal qualification”) by the Kinematic, Spatial, Numeric; it is difficult for anything to be “about” them. The two new categories are Technical and Mathematic.
