Truth, Knowledge, and Information Literacy: An <i>Aporetic</i> Approach

This paper aims to conduct a critical examination of the foundational assumptions and challenges of information literacy (IL), serving as a timely ‘reality check’ and a constructive instance of ‘problem-posing’. To this end, it advocates for an ‘aporetic’ approach, which constitutes a pivotal tool in philosophical inquiry. This approach posits that aporia—puzzlement rooted in the conflict of reasons—compels us to confront and grapple with (seemingly) insurmountable problems. It thereby creates opportunities to rethink fundamental concepts, theories, and perspectives. Through a critical literature review, this paper scrutinizes IL aporias across six scopes: conceptualization, theorization, philosophical underpinning, challenge, critique, and prospect. As a part of a broader project, the study focuses primarily on two key topics: truth and knowledge. The literature review identifies two aporias in IL: the disjunction between knowing and learning of knowledge, and the tension between information as objective truth and subjective interpretation of information, i.e., informativeness.