Most of the processes subsumed under »digitalization« have in common that they permit switching and simultaneity of sender and recipient roles over a broad range of communications. Preeminently, such communications provide and process information. However, the progress of digitalization in modern lifeworlds is not primarily driven by the development of digital technology. Digital technology is but the appropriate medium for enabling the exchange of the respective formats of information. Its thrust is embedded in a cumulative history of translation of analogue (...) world-relations into such formats of information and, moreover, the progressive transformation of reality in data-structures that can be digitally mapped and controlled. Such structures are attractive because they render our access to and handling of reality more secure and more predictable. Yet they also engender increasing helplessness and discontentment at the boundaries of the digitally controllable world. (shrink)

Modern sciences produce knowledge and findings which improve technological advance and our quality of life in every regard. But do the sciences also provide us with a genuine knowledge about the world in the sense of giving us insights into that which is taking place? This book traces the most important approaches, which have in past decades attempted to make intelligible the contemporary forms of scientific research and progress. The book suggests a new approach for a philosophy of science fit (...) for the 21st century. This new approach brings together and unites the various competing trends, from the philosophy of science to the sociology of science. Based on the findings the book discusses whether the sciences do in fact follow 'scientific' methods in order to reach their successes and whether what they produce can be considered 'knowledge' for us as individuals and for society at large. The discussion also asks whether philosophy itself is a science that produces knowledge"--Page 4. (shrink)