Desafíos del pensar social y humanístico frente a las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación

Resumen

Challenges to the humanities facing information and communication technologies

Cultural changes in today’s society are closely linked to the new information technologies. Further from the uncertainty characteristic of Modernity, new technologies have modified some basic concepts within human experience, such as time, space and virtually. Humanistic thought is marked by history not like a fatality, but as a construction, a social reality that becomes present and outlined like a future to be built. In such sense, a world in constant change requires the humanities’ reasoning procedures and cognitive resources to enable individuals and social groups to deal with the present situations of uncertainty, and to turn them into means for development and welfare. Our purpose is to identify the main challenges facing the humanities and social sciences—conceived as a field of knowledge in constant process of construction—as they identify new problems, design ways to approach them, and redefine their new spaces of intervention and action.

Key words. Humanities and social sciences, epistemology, information technologies, uncertainty, reflexivity, socio-cultural heterogeneity, critical comprehension