Keywords
information society
digital episteme
transformation
scientific truth
philosophy
ontology
gnoseology
How to Cite
Abstract
The article is devoted to the philosophical understanding of the concept of scientific truth, which is transforming under the influence of digitalization, as well as to the identification of factors leading to these changes. It analyzes classical ideas about scientific truth through the prism of ontological and epistemological principles, which showed that truth initially corresponded to objective reality and recognized the world as stable, orderly, deterministic, and universal. Non-classical views on the truthfulness of scientific knowledge were based on methods, linguistic structures, theoretical models, and the value orientations of scientists. At the beginning of the 21st century, a new digital episteme emerged, in which a wide variety of digital technologies, services, platforms, and tools, such as smartphones, cloud services, social networks, online services, etc., not only change the traditional tools of scientific research, but also the very structure of scientific knowledge as such. From an ontological point of view, the digital episteme recognizes reality as a hybrid environment where physical, social, and virtual elements are intertwined, and is filled with digital models, simulations, visualizations, etc. From a gnoseological point of view, the traditional role of the subject of cognition is changing, delegating its functions to algorithmic systems that analyze, interpret, and predict the truth instead of it. New models of understanding scientific truth emerging within the digital episteme are substantiated, and their philosophical implications are identified. The most important of these are pragmatic-algorithmic, statistical, network, simulative, and pluralistic. The sociocultural and ethical challenges associated with the transformation of scientific truth in the digital age are outlined. The conclusions emphasize that the digital age has changed the ontological, gnoseological, and sociocultural foundations of cognition, made truth dependent on algorithms, forecasts, network consensus, and simulation models, and transformed it into something procedural, functional, and contextual.
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