The Dual-Purpose Criterion: An Operationalisation of Epistemic Recursion for Small Research Groups. Methodological article
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper addresses the systematic loss of resilience and the attrition of researchinitiatives in small scientific groups operating under severe resource constraints. As asolution it proposes the dual-purpose criterion, an operationalisation of the principle ofcare for epistemic connectedness (Sorge) — the second component of the concept ofEpistemic Recursion. The author advances a cost model specifying a condition ofdeterministic degradation for actions that serve a single purpose (accumulation "for thefuture"). It is shown that, for any finite resource and any cost function monotonicallyincreasing in both time and volume, a late attempt to restore connectedness exceeds thegroup's resource limit, making the destruction of the ontology unavoidable; the resultdoes not depend on the particular form of the cost function. The criterion is set againstestablished results in the knowledge-management literature — the systematicdivergence between the requirements of the producer and the consumer of knowledge inrepositories, and the independence of counterproductive knowledge behaviour from thepresence of KM tooling — and against the concept of technical debt. A case ofindependent confirmation of all three anti-patterns described is reported from an audit ofa production knowledge-verification pipeline. The proposed criterion applies to any smallresearch group engaged in cumulative knowledge work in a digital environment
Author: Valsamaki, Maria
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7170838303
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