Knowledge Society as a Challenge to Rationality

Abstract

The concept of knowledge society defines a situation where, on the one hand, a rapid growth of the impact of knowledge on human life opens its new opportunities and productive perspective, but, on the other hand, it exacerbates the risks of human rationality regression. The purpose of the article is to analyze that dilemma. The main thesis is the assertion that criticism of rationality should be aimed at its strengthening, not weakening or putting it in opposition to other spheres of human existence. A knowledge society challenges the rationality through its radical changes, not restrictions. The basic vector of its changes is aimed at overcoming of the modern kind of rationality due to transition from the idea of unity of different forms of rationality to the idea of its diversity. The latter implies recognition of situational knowledge as the agent of distortion for the modern knowledge hierarchy and its objectivity. Then the concept of knowledge society should be seen in plural as “knowledge societies”, where the use of knowledge is shared and access to knowledge is free and fair. Failure to deal with the challenges of rationality pushes humanity to the path of technocratic servitude or makes it slide into barbarism.