Abstract

This article explores the connections between Melvil Dewey and Hegelianism and Charles Cutter and the Scottish Common Sense philosophers. It traces the practice of hierarchy from these philosophical influences to Dewey and Cutter and their legacy to today’s Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Subject Headings. The ubiquity of hierarchy is linked to Dewey’s and Cutter’s metaphor of organizing the mob of information into an orderly army using the tool of logic.