Digitalization from a philosophical point of view

The paper presents philosophical analysis of digitalization as an appropriate stage in the development of society. It applies the methods of abstraction, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, mental simulation, hermeneutics, and comparison. Dialectical principles of development and universal connection are also used. Digitalization is understood as a process of introducing digital technologies and digital devices into the life of society, which results in the emergence of a hybrid anthropic social technosphere. The paper shows that information and communication infrastructure is becoming an integral part, an existential prerequisite for human existence, and that new networks of production, power, experience and communication are emerging. This changes ontology, axiology and epistemology existing in a given community. The paper states that communication and information relations are becoming more intense; they are no longer influenced by the spatial and temporal barriers being almost invisible; information acquires diverse forms of its presentation, storage and transmission. Alterations in the methods and tools of cognition, as well as in the usual axiological attitudes against the background of serious social transformations are revealed. The previous property inequality is being replaced by the digital inequality, i.e. inequality in skills in working with the digital technologies and different degrees of access to the digital equipment and information infrastructure. The paper concludes that digitalization changes possibilities of the social mobility and trajectory of the individual and social life. On the one hand, digitalization is accompanied by the considerable benefits for humanity, while on the other hand, it increases the number of social risks and threats.

EDN RJASBI

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