ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of the historical roots of relational database theory, outlining how early practices in the field borrowed from analytic philosophies of meaning and language to coordinate collective knowledge production in a scientific way. Subsequent debates over meaning and validity in philosophy eventually precipitated new formal approaches to data, which is a shift from relational databases to knowledge graph databases. The chapter focuses on problems with the logicist idealization of meaning relative to other fields, even as it remains a dominant pragmatic approach behind-the-scenes in information systems (IS) design. Using early criticisms of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's pioneering and utopian concept of a worldwide knowledge graph called the Semantic Web as a foil to stage a broader critical discussion, the chapter addresses the relationship between the knowing subject, the social, and technical formatting in general. It concludes with an exposition of knowledge graphs in relation to their ideas.
