Document as a multifaceted knowledge object

The definition of document and its evolution over time and within different disciplinary fields influences and determines norms, safeguarding and protection profiles and also disciplinary boundaries, without, to date, any adequate theoretical reflection and any universally accepted semantics. An attempt to define at the very least a state of the art represents the unavoidable condition towards the re-establishment of text and documentary disciplines within an epistemic framework in the making. The terminological definition influences and determines the very concept of archive which, in a digital context, increases its innate polysemy and requires a deep conceptual redefinition.