Der Wahdel der Wissensordnung Durch Die Informationstechnik

Abstract

Due to the exponential growth of science and, recently, the explosive expansion of the extrascientific information of computerized ‘Data’ of all sorts, a New Cognitive Order of Society (‘Neue Wissensordnung’) comes into existence. The invalidation of the ‘Old Order’ with its classical conditions for the production, processing, application and fairly equal social distribution of knowledge is a result of technological developments, especially of the rise of Information Technology.

What may be called the Cognitive-Technological Complex is rapidly developing. Its consists of an intimate fusion of knowledge (‘information’ of all sorts) and technology, or simply cognition & computer, resulting from new trends towards the technization of knowledge itself and its accumulation to large technical systems or networks.

All this causes a fundamental change of the situation of knowledge (‘Wissenslage’) in the Information Society so-called. It confronts all Cognitive Sciences (Philosophy, Cognitive Psychology, Informations Sciences, etc.) with the task, ‘to climb up’ the growing infomation mountains and to analyse its contents and structures, i.e., old and new sorts of knowledge (‘Wissensarten’) in huge quantities and mixtures, with different cognitive styles (‘Erkenntnisstilen’), ‘orders’ (‘Wissensordnungen’), rationality-structures (‘Rationalitätsformen’), etc.

This cannot be done without new theories of knowledge and rationality. What is fundamentally needed is nothing less than a new Cognitive Constitution for the future Information Society. What is practically needed, involves a comprehensive cognitive competence for handling the whole information stuff, ranging from classical theory-knowledge to modern data-knowledge. Technical competence for programming computers and managing large quantities of information is necessary necessary but not sufficient. In order to be not only useful but senseful too, computer-aided problem-solving depends on a prior frame of reference for the proper institutionalization of the Cognitive-Technical Complex and its integration into the whole order of an Open Society with constitutional separation of power, fundamental human rights, free flow of information, etc.

Thus, on the one side, information technology poses new problems of constructive order policy (‘ordnungspolitisches Denken’). On the other side, informational developments open for nontechnical ‘soft sciences’ like philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other humanities an unexpected, perhaps undeserved chance to keep pace with the most progressive cognitive and technological developments. To take advantage of the new situation of knowledge and to explore the constitutive conditions of the New Cognitive Order is the first task of contemporary Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Psychology, Information Economy and Sociology, in close cooperation with Informations Sciences, Law and Policy.

Die vorliegenden Ausführungen sind aus dem von der Volkswagen Stiftung, dem Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst Baden-Würettemberg sowie der Universität Karlsruhe geförderten Forschungsprojekt des Verfassers “Zum Wandel der Wissensordnung in der Informationsgesellschaft” hervorgegangen.