2008/07/01 by David Henige · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeological Research and Protection #Digital and Traditional Archives Management #Counterfactual thinking #Alchemy #Agency (philosophy) #Epistemology #History #Philosophy #Art history
paper · doi:10.3138/jsp.39.4.354
published in Journal of Scholarly Publishing 39(4), 354-372 (University of Toronto Press)
openalex publication_date 2008/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Our sense of the past is expressed by a wide range, from belief without any knowledge to knowledge based on incontrovertible and converging evidence. There is also an additional category: presentations of the past that are admittedly counterfactual – that is, that are known never to have happened. How libraries classify these materials has an impact on whether they are believed or rejected. Unfortunately, the Library of Congress, the agency chiefly responsible for classifying books, has made no serious effort to distinguish between probable fact and palpable fiction, leaving users unsure as to what to believe.