To date, technology has become so integral to our lives that it is almost impossible to imagine a day without using it. The digitization of society is gaining speed every day, affecting all areas of life: communication with people and the management of entire governments. To one degree or another, the use of digital technologies can be observed in every social institution on which society is built. The process includes social changes associated with introducing modern technologies into society and social (...) control. Since the second half of the XX century, the introduction of digital technologies has been seen as a means of overcoming temporal and spatial restrictions, the negatives of subjectivity that hinder the development of modern society. In the XXI century, the influence of digital technologies has grown significantly, which calls into question the sovereignty of the person himself as a social object. Undoubtedly, technology makes our lives much more accessible, with benefits such as saving time, accessing new information, and simplifying everyday life. However, the more social space is captured by objective digitalization, the more this space undergoes subjective influence. Digital technologies do not liberate the person from subjective control but, on the contrary, contribute to it. In the article, we consider how this happens in the field of the major social institutions of society, and possible vital consequences of this impact. (shrink)

Abdolkarim Soroush’s thought is regarded by some researchers as a turning point in contemporary Islamic reform discourse. This article concerns Soroush’s epistemology as a determining factor in this paradigm shift and interprets this shift as an epistemological turn in Islamic reform discourse, shifting from ›Islamic genealogy of modernity‹ to rationalization of Islamic methodology. After a short introduction to Soroush’s intellectual biography, this article will isolate neorationalism or neo-Mu’tazilism, religious post-positivism, historicism, hermeneutics, and dialogism as main features of Soroush’s epistemology. This (...) paper suggests that rationalism as reasoning independent from revelation and non-essentialism are two main determining pillars of Soroush’s epistemology. In the conclusion, I shortly compare Soroush’s thought with some other contemporary Muslim reform thinkers and discuss how and why Soroush’s thought can be interpreted as an epistemological turn in Islamic reform discourse. (shrink)