The metaphysics of social singularity: outlining a conceptual framework through the theories of hypermodernity

Abstract

The article analyzes social singularity in the methodological construction of hypermodern theories. The established categories and binary oppositions of forms of the social in modern conditions of digitalization and technologization are rethought. It has been determined that social reality is shifting to the digital plane: identity becomes multilayered, space is a “non-place”, and time is a constant “now”, devoid of extension, and therefore a methodological space of hypermodern theories has been formed in social philosophy, which allows for the analysis of new forms of sociality, to determine the metaphysics of social singularity. It is emphasized that the logical-dialectical linearity that describes the sociality of existence does not solve the problems of modernity. The world is becoming nonlinear, relational, post-anthropocentric and singular, therefore an attempt is made to conceptualize social singularity within the framework of digital ontology through the methodological instrumentalist of hypermodern theories.

Purpose of the study. Describe the metaphysics of social singularity through the prism of hypermodern theories.

Methods. The study of the metaphysics of the social singularity is defined by descriptive analysis in combination with poststructuralism, the constructivist tradition and the principles of dialectical thinking. Additional methods and analytical strategies in our study are the hermeneutic method to explain texts that present the experience of algorithmic management, time acceleration, and the transformation of corporeality. The method of discourse analysis is applied to explain academic works on the future of society.

Results. It is substantiated that social singularity within the theories of hypermodernity appears not only as a sociological or technological shift, but as a metaphysical event that transforms the very foundations of understanding man, subjectivity, and reality.

Theories of hypermodernity propose a new logic for understanding contemporary digital civilization: a radicalization of postmodernity, where digital technologies, superspeed, apocalyptic sensitivity, and narcissistic subjectivity merge into a state of hyperreality. In this state, social singularity means not just a change in the structure of society, but a departure beyond classical sociality to an algorithmic, virtual, global existence that has no single center or stable logic.

Conclusions. The metaphysics of social singularity is the metaphysics of the loss of a stable subject, the dissolution between the natural and the artificial, the transition from truths to simulacra, from the human homo sapiens to the human digitally mediated data carrier.