Social Sciences Today: Contemporary Challenges

Abstract

The article highlights several areas that pose challenges for social science today. One of the challenges is the study of culture. The evolution of interest in culture in the social sciences is traced through an appeal to the role of culture in eco­nomics, which was an ideal type of ignoring culture for the most part of the 20th century. A paradigmatic shift towards interest in the study of culture at the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries temporarily expelled society from the main forces that determine human behavior. This approach is no less reductionist than the previous expulsion of culture. The growing attention to the role of culture somewhat obscures the discussion of the problems caused by the spread of global capitalism and the development of digital technologies. Several other challenges stem from the changes in the internal and external contexts of social knowledge production. In our opinion, the idea of human rights is becoming a new significant context both for discussing the challenges of digitalization, and external challenges to science. The author maintains the right to one’s own knowledge and public expression of judgment, to some extent reduces the grow­ing restrictions in other areas of the human rights exercise.