Recent heightened interest in the nature of IS as a discipline and what constitutes its theoretical basis offersrna novel moment to reflect upon the role of philosophical knowledge in the evolution of IS as discipline. Therndebate on the "IS as a discipline" has taken multiple turns as reflected in arguments around relevance vs. Rigorrndilemma, or what constitutes a necessary theoretical core for a discipline, how reference disciplines relate tornIS, or how disciplinary identity and theoretical core and legitimacy as a discipline and theoretical core arernrelated. One critical, but largely unrecognized aspect in these debates is the necessity to draw uponrnphilosophical studies as they relate to the nature of scientific knowledge and its foundations. Therefore it isrninteresting to explore the content of the underlying philosophical argument in these debates and what role theyrnassume to the philosophy as a field of inquiry . Reading the debates through these lenses suggests a largelyrnconfusing conclusion: one the one hand they assume that major philosophical issues around nature andrnprogress of scientific knowledge and theories have been already been resolved, and they provide a clearrnfoundation to decide what constitutes a good theory, or progress in the IS field; on the other hand they remainrnlargely silent what such philosophical criteria are, and how they can be successfully established and adoptedrnfrom philosophical studies into the IS field. A more surprising conclusion is that they seem to advocate arnpositivist, or Popperian concept of what should be the role of philosophy as a reference discipline. Philosophyrnshould provide the ultimate language and a logic for the justification of IS knowledge. This view, as we allrnknow, has been largely contested in the philosophy in the post modern era. Another, "postpositivist", view ofrnthe role of philosophy in the IS field would be to view it as a critical voice in a conversation about therninformation systems that seeks to undermine any quest for a ultimate foundation of the IS discipline.rnPhilosophy deconstructs any language and logic that has been developed for such purposes. Some preliminaryrnobservation of how this role of the philosophy in relation to IS discipline could be played out are discussed.
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