Solving Names

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Solving Names is the expression given by the American pragmatist philosopher William James for the metaphysical principles of the university that once found meant that no further debate or enquiry was needed. The quest for solving names was the quest for power over the universe but for James such a search was bound to be fruitless since rather than a solution such names only indicate that more work needs to be done that social reality can never be captured once-and-for-all but must be confronted and chanted.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(64 64 64 1)>Modern librarianship relies on the construction of solving names as a way to ground debate discussion and consensus but these solving names have the effect of disciplining structuring and constraining what is possible within the profession. Rather than being arbitrary accidental or contingent Popowich argues that the metaphysical reliance on solving names serves a hegemonic purpose: the construction maintenance and reproduction of racial settler-colonial patriarchal capitalism. As an alternative Popowich takes a broadly Marxist approach proposing a shift towards worldliness the recognition that all concepts are implicated in struggles over power and can never escape the constraints of material and social life. Adopting a worldly non-metaphysical approach would require reconceiving such notions as freedom democracy common sense and reason in order to confront the reality of power and social and political conflict. Solving Names is a contribution to the political philosophy of contemporary librarianship and an intervention in current debates around cancel culture intellectual freedom knowledge reason and technology.</span></p><p><br></p>