The Importance of Semantic Relationships in Knowledge Organization

The quality of knowledge organization in information retrieval systems determines the quality of information intellectual accessibility. To provide quality means to use theoretically justified methods for knowledge organization. The objective of the present article is, on the basis of semantic theories and epistemological positions (empiricism, rationalism, idealism, psychological subjectivism, pragmatism) and the model of Activity Theory to highlight different understandings of meaning and to bring out the impact of each understanding upon the ways of information processing and selection results. This research turns out topical also in connection of building the semantic web as well as for constructing taxonomies for intranets, because “a look from aside” (from semiotics, philosophy) could make it easier to understand what the representation of semantic relations (concepts and their relations and structures) should be “within” the information retrieval system.